


iron, salt, earth

by NeonDaisies, youareiron_andyouarestrong



Series: to dwell in dreams [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Faerie Courts, Gen, Growing Up, Post-Series, Wizarding America - Freeform, Wizarding Mexico
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2018-11-21 18:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11362902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeonDaisies/pseuds/NeonDaisies, https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: Jyn Erso has never known anything but the wizarding world.Cassian Andor, a Muggleborn, has arrived from Mexico with a wand from his homeland.





	1. the first year

_Now_

A girl, a wand, a nail. A knife.  

Running, running, running.

The hoarse, cracked voice of someone from the before-- _don’t let them catch you if you can, don’t look into their eyes, eat nothing they offer, be canny, be clever, be quick--_

High, intolerably silvery voices laughing, calling out even now as she runs-- _come out little one, come out, we won’t hurt you, we only want to play, little one, little cousin, little rabbit, little_ weasel--

She sobs once, a broken, muffled sound, almost lost amidst the sound of her pants. She cannot be caught, she cannot be caught. She cannot be _seen._ They will find her, they will _catch_ her, they will dance her around and around and around until she falls down dead, or until they get bored and let some other thing have their turn with her. They will cut her open and dye her clothes red with the blood, laugh as she jerks as the knives pierce her skin, they will find iron shoes and heat them red hot and make her wear them, dance in them, because _they’ll think it’s funny when she screams--_

She has a wand, a knife, a nail. Iron in her hand, a crystal around her neck, magicked wood. Nothing else. He didn’t let her _take_ anything else.

The hoarse, cracked voice in her memory: _you must learn, I cannot teach you, I cannot save you, Bor Gullet says you will learn best this way--_

More laughter, more singing. So beautiful as to be unbearable. So beautiful as to be terrifying. _Come out, come out, come out, come out and play--_

* * *

 

_Before_

Jyn Erso has never known anything but the wizarding world.  Her father, Galen Erso was a Danish wizard who fell in love with an French-English witch Lyra Blanchard that he met in Diagon Alley, and he went back to Copenhagen after he married her.  Jyn grew up in the cool green forests of Denmark and then the coast of northern England, running wild through the forests and screaming with laughter at the crash of fierce waves on stubborn rocks. At seven years old, she was already making dishes fly through the air and leaves rise off the ground to dance in autumn sunlight.

“Little dragon,” Galen called her gently, fondly, as Lyra shook her head in amused exasperation and pride at their precocious child, “little star.”

Her godfather, Saw Gerrera, a highly respected wizard and perhaps the only living expert on wild magic (since Newt Scamander of course), taught her how to use a hammer, how to climb the highest tree on her family’s property and the best jinxes to use against people she disliked. “Wild little thing,” he would say, half in amusement, half in worry, watching Jyn tramp fearlessly over the fields, the family’s Irish wolfhound Cullen loping at her side. “Bold wee wolf.”

In the woods, wandering freely with her play wand, Jyn pretended she was an Auror at the Battle of Hogwarts, or Morgana Le Fay, flinging curses and spells at her enemies. “Take _that,_ ” she’d shout fearlessly, “and _that,_ and that Death Eaters! Come and get me!”

The forest seemed to hear the words, and swallow them whole.  

When Jyn was eight years old, she began to see lights in the woods.

They were bright, shimmering lines in the earth, or dancing, flickering flashes in the air. Like the Christmas lights muggles put on trees, or stars at night. They followed Jyn, floating around her hair or shoulders, almost humming, almost singing. Jyn, her hair in a crown of braids she asked her mother to put  in her hair that morning, danced among them, pretending she was a star queen, and all the little lights were her loyal attendants.

The lights would seem to float ahead of her, leading her on, further and deeper into the forest, until Cullen at her side would begin to growl or pace anxiously, get his teeth into the back of her sweater and tug her firmly backwards. There were certain copses of trees Cullen wouldn’t let her go near, ones that made his hackles rise and bare his teeth. Her parents noticed the mud on her shoes and leaves clinging to her braids, and Lyra quietly laid avoidance charms on her daughter’s shoes, come-home spells to guide her back if she wandered too far. They didn't want to scare her, but there was no sense in taking risks.

One midsummer night, when the full moon was so bright it looked like daylight outside, Galen and Lyra awoke to the sound of Cullen growling. It was a low, continuous, warning sound as he paced outside their bedroom. They hurried out, to see Jyn standing at the front door, pulling at the knob in frustration. Cullen planted himself between her and the door, teeth bared still, refusing to move even as Jyn pulled at his collar. “I want to go out,” she cried, almost in tears, “I want to see the horns!”

Galen and Lyra heard nothing (or at least, they told themselves they heard nothing), and put Jyn back to bed, soothing and giving her a tea to put her to sleep. Cullen lay down at the side of the bed, still growling and bristling, ears pricked as if he was listening for something.

Galen and Lyra were pureblood wizard and witch, not one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight from England, but respected and ancient bloodlines nevertheless. The Erso family went back to the ancient times, with rumors that they had ties to the Erlköing and his court. It was also said Lyra’s family was descended from Melusíne, the faerie (or fallen angel, depending on who you talked to) who had given birth to a line of French heroes, wizards, sorcerers and a few kings. Old, wild blood ran through their family trees, blood that stayed quiet and dormant, until Jyn was born, and she heard music no one else did and danced with lights in the woods.

Galen and Lyra did not talk of it. There was nothing to say. Their daughter was no changeling child left on the doorstep. The fae had been gone from England for centuries. Jyn was simply dreaming.

But that did not stop Lyra from planting rowan and hawthorn trees outside their gate, and Galen from nailing a horseshoe above their door.

* * *

 

At eleven, Jyn received her Hogwarts letter from a magnificent golden barn owl with a wise moon face, along with a gilded invitation to Beauxbatons, her mother’s school and a rough parchment that looked like it was made from dragon skin from Durmstrang, where her father attended.

“Which should I pick?” Jyn asked her parents, not really anxious, but considering.

“Whichever one you think you could call home,” Lyra said, smoothing her daughter’s wayward braids. “Either way, you could go wherever you liked and we’d send you an owl every day.”

Jyn liked the idea of getting an owl every day, but Caine, the family's owl, was getting on in life and a daily trip to Siberia or France might be a bit much for him. Besides, she’d visited Beauxbatons before and had felt ridiculously out of place there, like one false move would shatter something.

She picked up the Hogwarts letter, peered at the crest; the eagle, the lion, the badger, the serpent.

“Hogwarts,” she said, feeling the rightness and sureness of it. “That’s where I want to go.”

“Then that’s where we’ll send Caine,” her father said and Jyn relaxed into his side.

Before the beginning of term, she and her parents went to Diagon Alley to pick out her wand from Ollivander’s and other school supplies. The proprietor was not quite the same man since the last wizarding war, as everyone agreed, but his wands were still impeccable.  

Ollivander eyed Jyn thoughtfully as she stood before him, his silvery eyes glinting like moons. “She’s strong, isn't she?” he asked Galen and Lyra. “Been showing her talent young, hmm? Well…” he dug around in the stacks of boxes, muttering. “Hawthorn? No, no, cedar? Too unpredictable, yew? No, not quite…” He drew a box seemingly at random and presented to Jyn. “Try this one. Rowan wood and dragon heartstring, nicely supple and swishy,” he said softly, missing the glances Lyra and Galen exchanged. Or paying them no mind.

Jyn gripped the wand carefully but firmly, as her father and mother had taught her, warm wood a shade between golden, white, and brown. It felt _right_ in her hand, like walking into her father’s study at home, or watching her mother when she was brewing in the kitchen. She flicked it experimentally, and silver and gold sparks shot off the end, lighting up the dim interior of the shop.

“Well!” Ollivander said, leaning back, eyebrows raised. “Rare, I fit a wand to a witch so quickly. And such a wand as this.” He gave Jyn a quick, piercing look. “Rowan for protection,” he said softly. “Dragon heartstring for strength. You will bear it well, I think. It is in your blood.”

Jyn had clutched the wand to her chest in its elegant box as her parents paid Mr. Ollivander, remembering flashing sparks in the air before, exultant. _I did that, I can_ do _that._  

After, wandering around Flourish and Blotts, Jyn had lost interest in looking at the required textbooks, and slipped away to look at wizard novels. There had been an uptick in fiction writing in the wizarding world, especially for children. She went straight for her favorite corner and stopped short, realizing someone was already there: a young boy about a year older than her, peering at the shelves.

“Oh,” she said, startled, “hello.”

He turned to look at her and Jyn peered into his face interestedly. He had a solemn, serious expression, a crop of dark hair and brown eyes, and warm golden skin. “Hello,” he said carefully, his accent foreign to Jyn’s ears. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jyn Erso,” she said, “who are you?”

“Cassian Andor,” he replied, and with strangely grown up formality, held out his hand to shake. Bemused, Jyn took it and sort of moved about awkwardly; she'd never shaken hands with another kid before.

“Are you going to Hogwarts too?” she asked. “What year are you in?”

“Second,” he replied, though he didn’t look sure. “I think. I’m--I’m--my parents are-- _mundanos,_ but my mother’s English--”

“Oh you’re a Muggleborn,” Jyn said instantly and he grimaced.

“I don’t like that word,” he said flatly. “ _Muggles_ ,” and Jyn had to admit it sounded very undignified in his accent.

“Well, it’s because of the war, you see,” Jyn explained, feeling very grown-up at knowing something this older boy didn’t. He stared at her blankly.

“What war?”

“ _The_ war,” Jyn said, wondering. “The last war we had, where Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort--”

“ _Who?”_ echoed Cassian in bewilderment and Jyn squinted at him, puzzled at his not knowing.

“Where are you _from?_ ”

“Mexico,” he said flatly, clearly prepared to defend his homeland.

“Oh,” she said, and went hurriedly, “Don’t worry, there’ll be _loads_ of Muggleborns at Hogwarts, and they’ll all be very good. Speaker Granger is a Muggleborn and they said she was the brightest of her age, when she was at Hogwarts.”

“I don’t know who that _is,”_ said Cassian helplessly and Jyn, entirely without thought, said, “I’ll help you.”

She didn’t know why, later, she’d said that. Even as eleven, Jyn was not known for giving help to people unasked for. All she knew was that she’d looked at this boy and some part of her soul her eleven-year old self did not yet understand said, _Mine._

“Jyn,” she heard her mother call, from some aisles away, “Jyn, love, where are you?”

“I have to go,” she said apologetically, “but I’ll see you on the train, okay? At Platform 9 ¾ .”

As she hurried away, she’d heard him echo, “Platform _Nine and Three Quarters?”_

* * *

 She _did_ see him on the train on September first, sitting in a compartment with a tall, lanky boy with glasses and skin the color of well-polished copper. They seemed already to be deep in conversation, but that had never stopped Jyn before. She burst into inside, exclaiming, “Hello again!”

They both looked up, surprised and Jyn was at least pretty sure he looked relieved to see her. “Oh,” he said, “hello again--”

“Jyn,” she reminded him, “Jyn Erso. And _you’re_ Cassian Andor.”

“And I’m Kay Esso,” said the other taller boy irritably, “now that we’ve all introduced ourselves and you’ve interrupted our conversation…”

Jyn turned a hard-eyed stare at him; even at eleven years old, Jyn Erso had a glare that could peel paint. “I met Cassian in Diagon Alley,” she said mulishly, “where are _you_ from?”

“Oxford,” he said flatly in response. “And you must be from…”

“Scarborough,” she said defiantly.

“That explains the accent,” he said dismissively and Jyn bristled, glaring.

Cassian, clearly accustomed to this sort of thing, hastily opening a space on the bench next to him, motioning for Jyn to sit down; she did so with dignity and no small sense at satisfaction at Kay’s disgruntled look. “What house do you think you’ll be in?” she asked him.

“Kay was just explaining the houses to me,” Cassian said.

“I hope I’m in Gryffindor,” said Jyn and Kay snorted.

“You _would,_ ” he said and Jyn glared at him again.

“Are _you_ going to be in _Slytherin_?” she asked, perhaps a bit more nastily than really called for.

“ _I'm_ a third year,” said Kay loftily. “And I’m in Ravenclaw, thank you very much. And if I were you, I’d keep any prejudices you’ve got against Slytherins to yourself; the staff’s now very keen on inter-house relations, since the war.”

“My godfather was a Slytherin,” Jyn retorted. “Saw Gerrera. _You_ just look like one of the nasty ones.”

“Saw Gerrera is _your_ godfather,” said Kay disgustedly. “Well, I should’ve guessed.”

“What’s so bad about Slytherin?” Cassian asked hastily, before Jyn could do something dreadful to Kay.

“Slytherin House has a long, storied, rather extended history of association with the Dark Arts,” Kay said, in a rather lecturing tone. “They value cunning and ambition, and their traditional rival has always been Gryffindor. In the last Wizarding War, the Dark Lord Voldemort came from that house, and so did the majority of his followers. Now, head of the House is Horace Slughorn and he’s _very_ keen on repairing the reputation of Slytherin, since it’s been so closely associated with the Dark Arts and the war.” He sent a stern look at Jyn. “Inter-house meals are now _strongly_ encouraged now, if not mandatory.”

Jyn had never had a good relationship with _mandatory_. “What were you saying about Saw?” she demanded and Kay scowled officiously.

“Only that he came last year to be our professor for DADA,” he said, “and he came back over the winter holidays...changed. Left abruptly, haven’t seen or heard anything from him since.”

Jyn frowned. True, _she_ hadn’t heard anything from Saw since last year either, but that wasn’t uncommon. Saw wasn’t the sort of godfather who stayed in one place.

“Kay’s a--a Muggleborn too,” Cassian said careful with his pronunciation. “Lady Monica Mothma is the head of his house.”

“I know Mothma,” said Jyn. “She and my father worked together.”

“You're a pureblood then,” said Kay flatly and Jyn frowned.

“I guess,” she said reluctantly and shrugged. “My parents aren’t English, though. Papa’s from Denmark and mama was born in France. Her mother was English though, and she went to Beauxbatons, and Papa was at Durmstrang.”

“You could’ve gone to Durmstrang,” Kay said, “or Beauxbatons. Why Hogwarts?”

Jyn couldn’t really answer that. She wasn’t sure _why,_ it just seemed to fit her, like a well-worn pair of boots. She turned to Cassian instead. “Are there wizarding schools in Mexico?” she asked.

He looked startled at the question, but answered, “ _Casa Bruja,_ in Mexico City. There are more in the other states. And there is another in Brazil.  But my mother is from England and I have family here too. I got the letter from both places.” He looked somewhat uncomfortable talking about it. “At _Bruja,_ the admittance age is twelve, not eleven. I didn’t want to leave home so soon. So I waited a year. The Headmistress of Hogwarts, she was very nice about making the arrangements. I’ll take classes at _Bruja_ over the summer too, once I get home.”

“A sensible arrangement,” said Kay approvingly. “You can’t learn _everything_ at Hogwarts.”

This uninterested Jyn; she pressed onto more important matters. “Do you know Quidditch at all?” she asked hopefully.

Cassian shook his head. “I play _fútbol._ ”

“Is that like Quidditch?” she asked curiously and that seemed to be the right question to ask. Cassian launched into an enthusiastic and eager explanation, and Kay, clearly uninterested in discussing anything remotely athletic, fished out a textbook and buried himself in it.

“Did you get your wand in Diagon Alley?” she asked Cassian eventually. “Or in Mexico?”

“Mexico,” he said, with that strange flash of defensiveness again; Jyn wondered if he had already been teased about his home.

“Can I see?” she asked curiously and Kay said, without looking up from his book, “Remember you aren’t allowed to do magic on the train.”

Jyn, who had been making dishes fly through the air at age seven, said crossly, “I’m not asking him to do _magic,_ I just want to see it.”

Cassian fished around in his bag and pulled out the wand carefully, even warily, as if it might bite him. It was made out of a strange, dark wood, unfamiliar to Jyn, knots from the bark lingering still in the long heft of it. She didn’t ask to touch it--she had _manners_ after all, but said instead, “I like it. It looks fierce. What sort of wood is it?”

“Mesquite wood,” Cassian replied. “The wandmaker--Alfonso Diaz Rosa-Augustín Mondragón--he is the finest wandmaker in Mexico.” You could hear the pride in that, prickly and defiant as thorns. “He said mesquite is sometimes called ‘devil trees’ and he said he used phoenix feathers and hair from _La Llorona.”_

“What is that?” Jyn asked, still studying the wand.

“A ghost story in Mexico,” Cassian replied, putting his wand away carefully. “She either drowns children or saves them from being drowned, depending on who you talk to.”

The train made an abrupt lurch and halted, and they all looked up, wheels grinding and the smoke stack screeching.

“We’re here,” said Kay unnecessarily, since they could all tell the train stopped. “You two will go on boats. I’ll see you at the Great Hall.”

Jyn and Cassian exchanged nervous, excited looks--excited for Jyn, nervous for Cassian.

“Here we go,” breathed Jyn and Cassian gripped the strap of his bag a little tighter.

* * *

 The Great Hall was lit with enchanted stars and candles. By some unspoken agreement, Jyn and Cassian stayed close together in the sea of nervous eleven year olds, their robes still black.

Silvery ghosts materialized in the air before them, some wearing fashions from centuries ago and a few, strangely enough, in modern clothing. Jyn didn’t recognize those, but Cassian made a sound of recognition. “I talked to the ghosts back home,” he said in her ear, “on _Dia de Los Muertos.”_ They were settled onto a long, low bench as a tall, stern looking witch with square shaped glasses rose from the high table.

“That’s Minerva McGonagall,” Jyn whispered to Cassian. “She’s the headmistress, a veteran of _two_ wizarding wars, _and_ one of the best witches in England, my father says.”

“Students,” said the witch, grey eyes sweeping the Hall like searchlights. “I welcome you all back to Hogwarts, first-years and returners alike.”

Jyn sat up a little straighter, a little prouder. Cassian looked wary, but receptive.

“I see we have a considerable crop of first years with us,” McGonagall went on, “and since I know you are all eager to get to the Feast, let us begin.”

She drew her wand out of her robes and flicked it once into the air. There was a shower of silver sparks and then a tattered, disreputable black wizard’s pointed hat appeared in the air before them, patches from bygone years adorning it. It floated in midair for a moment; Cassian clutched Jyn’s robes surreptitiously for reassurance. She found his hand and squeezed it hard.

“Welcome,” the hat declared and Cassian jerked at Jyn’s side, “to Hogwarts, young witches and wizards, young marvels and miracles, children of our court! May you find all that you seek here.”

“Sometimes he sings a song,” Jyn whispered, “but I guess that depends on the year.”

“We will begin,” said McGonagall and consulted a parchment that reached the floor. “Aarons, Jane!”

_Alphabetical order then_ , Jyn thought, and kept her grip on Cassian’s hand.

When “Andor, Cassian!” was called, he swallowed hard, audible to Jyn’s ears alone, and then rose, walking slowly, with great purpose, down the long, long aisle. “Isn’t he a little _old_ to be a first year?” Jyn heard a voice remark and tried to glare in its direction. She watched Cassian sit on the stool beneath the Sorting Hat and it slowly settled down on his head, the brim slipping over his eyes.

* * *

 Cassian wanted to go home.

He wanted the warmth of Mexico, the low, adobe brick of _Brujas,_ not this cold, drafty, gorgeous castle that he could feel the foundations turning under his feet in a land soaked with mist and cold.

_You_ chose _this,_ he reminded himself. _Stop being a baby and face up to it._

The hat smelled like a thousand years of different heads underneath it. Cassian sat very still and tried not to squirm.

_“Strong sense of duty, eh?”_ a low voice muttered in his ear and he tried not to jump. _“Hmm, skeptical and suspicious, well, you’re no fool, young man. You're a bit older than I usually get them, but I think that will suit for you._ _Ahhh...duty, loyalty, fairness...but a good bit of cunning, of subtlety. You’ve got a healthy sense of survival. Now, where to put you? Have any preferences?”_

“I don’t know,” Cassian whispered, “just where I’d do the most good, I guess.”

A laugh like dry paper catching fire. _“Oh, young man, you_ are _a new sort. Hmmm...well, you’d do well in Slytherin, you know. Oh, I know it’s reputation--I see you’ve heard of it too. Not a bad place, really. You’d go far, in the shadows.”_

Cassian thought of the wand that Alfonso Mondragόn had pressed into his hands, the sense of strength like ancient roots rising up from it. “ _La Llorona knows about keeping what’s hers, mijo,”_ Mondragόn had said. “ _She protects her own. And the devil tree endures everything, even fire, even drought. It can last for a hundred years. It survives.”_  

_“Well,”_ the Hat murmured, “ _the needs of the many, eh? Better be--_ HUFFLEPUFF! _”_

The Hat was lifted off his head and Cassian blinked in the candlelight. A table with a golden banner and black badger floating above it rose to its feet, cheering and clapping as he made his way down the aisle. He tried to look over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of Jyn, but he couldn’t see her.

* * *

 

The Hat came to rest on Jyn’s head and went silent for a moment or two before remarking, _“Well now, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the likes of you before.”_

_The likes of_ me? Jyn wondered and bit her lip. Was there something _wrong_ with her and the Hat could tell?

“ _Oh no, no, no, child,”_ the Hat said softly, _“there’s nothing_ wrong _with you. You’re just something new, is all. A wee fae girl.”_

_Fae._ Something pinged in recognition in Jyn’s mind, from far off remembered discussions her father had had with other people, before they moved to England. Witches and wizards sitting around their kitchen table with mugs of ale or cups of tea heatedly debating something about “the Erlkönig” and “summoning the courts.” Jyn had only been seven at the time--she hadn’t paid any attention to the arguments of grown-ups. But it had been something her father and mother had clearly felt strongly about, because when she was eight, they abruptly moved from Denmark to England. Jyn could remember missing the forests desperately--but the coast and the woods in England had helped a good deal.

The Hat went on in her ear, _“Courage, grit, nerve--oh, you’ve no lack of that, child! But there’s_ iron _here in your bones, bared teeth. You’d make a terror of a Slytherin--but that won’t do for you. No, for you, it’d better be--_ GRYFFINDOR!”

The hat vanished and Jyn rose to her feet, eyes fixed on the crimson banner and the golden lion rearing proudly rampant, all thoughts of “fae” vanishing from her mind.   

* * *

 Jyn wore the red and gold trim on her robes proudly, head held high, shoulders back. Cassian had gold and black on his robes and walked quietly, but with purpose, watching everything. He was a peculiar case in Hogwarts, being a transfer student from overseas. By age, he was a second year, but he was in first year _and_ second year classes. The arrangement had been worked out by his parents and Headmistress McGonagall, who recognized a promising young student when she saw one.  

Jyn and Cassian did not see each much, over that first year. Cassian kept to himself in order to keep up with his studies, and Jyn was doing her best to navigate the social life in the Gryffindor tower. They saw each other in the passing, walking through corridors, navigating the ever-changing stairwells, or in the Great Hall for interhouse meals between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Jyn found herself constantly on the watch for him, a serious, listening face amidst all the others.

They were strange students, the both of them, for Cassian struggled with defensive charms but excelled at Potions and history. Jyn had little patience for herbology and none for history, but was already on level with second years when it came to transfiguration and jinxes. Neville Longbottom, professor of Herbology and the head of Gryffindor, was also doubling as the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, noticed her aptitude. He made mention of it Headmistress McGonagall, that she should find a truly and uniquely qualified professor for DADA, to keep up with the students.

The first year at Hogwarts for Jyn went by with astonishing quickness. Jyn hoped the second year would be a little more exciting, as far as studies went.

Cassian was not so fortunate.

He struggled considerably in basic charms and spells, despite his aptitude for history and potions. His mispronunciation in Charms and Transfiguration made him a constant target for corrections and barely muffled giggles from the other second years. At this rate, Professor Kenobi thought it would be best to move him to the first year class, in order to let him catch up.

Cassian gritted his teeth and studied harder, with more grim determination. He knew it would be hard when he decided to attend Hogwarts. He wasn’t about to let anything, strange and unfamiliar magic or otherwise, hold him back. Kay Esso, the boy from the train, decided to become Cassian’s self-appointed tutor, leading him through the second year material and reviewing the first year curriculum.  Susan Bones, head of Hufflepuff, allowed the arrangement, since Monica Mothma approved of anyone who could tolerate Kay’s less than...amicable personality traits.

The ghosts in the library commented on his dedication.

“Never had a _transfer_ student before,” said Sir Nicholas dubiously. “Aren’t you a long way from home, young man?”

“Oh, leave him alone, Nicholas,” commanded the Friar, hovering protectively over Cassian’s table, having taken a liking to this serious young member of his house. “He’s exactly where he needs to be.”

The Grey Lady of Ravenclaw drifted by; the Bloody Baron floated in the far off corners. A young man with a crooked tie and a ghostly red hair flickered in and out of sight next him, playfully nudging papers closer or shooing off Peeves the poltergeist from pestering Cassian at his studies.

The ghosts of Hogwarts rather liked Cassian; he always spoke to them with great politeness and deference, being used to it from years of talking to passed on relations on _Dia de los Muertos_ back home.

The denizens of Mexico, La Muerte and Xibalba, had spoken to him often as well, amused by him and his slowly growing power. “You aren’t meant for _here_ yet, _mijo,_ ” said La Muerte fondly to him, one elegant skeleton hand brushing back his hair. “You’ll have to go far before you’re meant for here.”

At her side, Xibalba snorted. “Good luck, young man. Where you’re going, you’ll need it.”   

 

 


	2. the second year

_Now_

In what feels like years and years and years ago now, she remembers--people. Boys, specifically.  Three of them, all of them different, strange, precious, _hers._ A tall, dark snappish one, a shorter wide-eyed one who followed her like a shadow, and one who still now, even now, burned in her memory, solemn dark eyes and a voice that reached her no matter where she was.

In the before, the boys were by her side during all things, each of them strong, quick, gifted. Foils for her own strange, wild strength. The dark-eyed boy especially, the one who used her name like it was precious, wrought of gold and finely made. She could just remember their faces, their names. The notion of them vanishing from her memory altogether was terrifying. If she forgot them, all else would be lost. They were _her_ boys, _her_ friends, _her_ companions, her _folk._ Her people. _My boys, my boys, my boys, mine mine mine…_

She starts running again.  The knife is cold in her hand, the crystal warm, almost hot, against her chest. There are no hunters after her yet, but there will be soon. And she needs to get back. To the circle. To the stones. To her boys.  

* * *

 

_Before_

Jyn arrived into her second year at Hogwarts with a crystal her mother had enchanted around her neck, to light up with warmth when she was feeling lonely or missing home particularly bad that day. Her father had found it, her mother had spelled it and soon Jyn wore it all the time, going to touch it in reassurance or comfort.

Cassian arrived as well, with spell books in Spanish and a politely defiant glint in his eyes when he pronounced Latin with his own accent, insteading of adhering to the preferred pronunciation of most teachers. His sudden progress was noted by his professors. Particularly Lady Motha and General Draven, one of the veterans from the last war. They were joint professors of Muggle Studies and wizarding history and his improvement pleased them both. Kay continued to be both the bane of Horace Slughorn’s existence and the private delight of Peeves the poltergeist, who could never make him flinch no matter what pranks he pulled.  

Bodhi Rook was a first year Gryffindor, a half blood from the south of London. He was soft-spoken and not nearly as brash as the fellow members of his house, but nervy in a quiet sort of way. It took the Sorting Hat twenty whole minutes to decide where to put him, and after he had been placed, he looked around at his House like he was in a cage of lions and he had no chair or whip to keep them back.

Jyn took one look at Bodhi Rook and thought, _this kid’s going to get eaten alive._

Cassian took one look at Bodhi Rook and thought, _who’s looking after this kid?_

About a month  into his term, Bodhi was set upon by a gang of louder, rougher fifth-year Gryffindors who began to give him grief about not using the approved Latin in his spells. Jyn flew to his defense without even thinking about it. She hurled a freezing jinx at one and a kick at the other. Unexpectedly, Bodhi said something in Urdu and one of their robes lengthed far enough for the boy to trip over and go sprawling on the floor.  Cassian just happened to be in the small hallway as it was going down.  He grabbed the back of her robes with one hand and seized hold of Bodhi in the other. He hauled them both out and down a small hallway before an irate group of prefects and professors descended on them.

“I _had_ them,” said Jyn indignantly, eyes still bright from exertion and energy still pouring off her. “Did you have to stop us?”

“Do you _want_ to get another detention?” asked Cassian severely. “You’ve already three this week.”

“They were ganging up on a first year!” said Jyn indignantly. “A member of _our own house!_ ”

Bodhi cleared his throat. “Um, I’m right here.”

Both of them turned to look at him, still heated expressions from their argument. Bodhi waved a little awkwardly.  

“Um, hi,” he said, still eyeing them both warily. “I’m Bodhi Rook, if you’re interested.”

“Jyn Erso,” she replied, “and _he’s_ a stick in the mud,” waving a hand in Cassian’s direction.

“That’s kind of a funny name,” Bodhi observed mildly and smiled guilelessly at Cassian’s suspicious look and Jyn’s startled, delighted grin.

“What was that spell you used, to trip the other one up?” asked Jyn curiously. “I didn’t recognize it.”

“My mum taught it to me,” said Bodhi. “I use it all the time, with my siblings.”

“It wasn’t in Latin,” Cassian said, unable to help himself pointing this out. A summer’s worth of classes at Bruja had taught him the importance of the difference between a spell spoken in Spanish or a spell said in Latin. His clothespins became parrots instead of finches in transfiguration.

“Urdu,” Bodhi replied, with a little shrug. “ _I_ don’t see why I need to learn Latin if my mum’s spells work just as well.”

“My father taught me spells in Danish,” Jyn offered. “My mum knows spells in French, but I can’t--”

“Erso! Rook!”

An irritated prefect of Gryffindor approached them, followed by the Head Boy of Gryffindor. “You two,” said the Head Boy, glowering, “detention. For doing magic outside of class--”

“They were picking on Bodhi!” said Jyn, bristling with outrage.

“ _And_ physical altercations,” the Head Boy finished, glaring fiercely. “Come along, Professor Longbottom wants to talk to you.”

Bodhi and Jyn grimly fell in line behind the two older students and Cassian, before he quite realized what he was doing, walked with them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked the prefect in annoyance. “ _You’re_ in Hufflepuff.”

“I was in the fight too,” said Cassian, more or less the truth. Jyn and Bodhi looked at each other wide-eyed at this prevarication.  

“You should have better sense than to be around troublemakers,” says the Head Boy, aggravated and Jyn sticks her tongue out at his back.

“No, I don’t think I should,” Cassian said, and had the full, sudden force of Jyn’s delighted grin turned on him and Bodhi’s bewildered, if pleased smile.

There are some things you couldn’t go through without ending up liking each other, and standing up to a pack of bullies together (and getting detention for it) is one of them.  

* * *

 The second year of Hogwarts might’ve been Jyn’s favorite, when she looked back on it in later years. Bodhi and Cassian were at her side constantly, exploring the castle, avoiding Filch, wandering the very fringes of the Forbidden Forest. Jyn was constantly getting Bodhi into trouble and he was just as constantly pulling her out of it. Jyn didn’t let any other students harass Bodhi about his use of Urdu spells; for that matter, she started picking fights on Cassian’s behalf someone called his use of Spanish in their classes to attention.  

Kay, still Cassian’s self-proclaimed tutor, rounded out their small, strange group with sarcastic commentary about Jyn’s shenanigans or even more acerbic remarks about the vagaries of the wizarding world, in England or otherwise. “Why,” was one of his more frequent complaints, “are we using quill pens? Is it the seventeenth century? Are we not living in the twenty-first century? What is _with_ this absurd attachment to antiquated forms for writing when we have _computers_ or even, God forbid, _pencils.”_

“If Professor Binns catches you using a pencil in History, he’ll take away more house points,” Cassian pointed out.

“As long as I get his tedious, repetitive lectures down what does it matter what I write with to do it?”  Kay retorted.

“Wizards have _always_ used quills,” Jyn argued. “It’s tradition.” Even though her own father had been known to, on occasion, write his notes down with a lovely fountain her mother had given him on one of his birthdays. Jyn had been writing with a quill all her life and admittedly, not even using a pencil or pen would’ve improved her handwriting much. Still, Kay didn’t have to criticize _everything_ about Hogwarts.

“I have to agree with Kay,” Bodhi said, bent over his own homework. “Using pens and pencils is a lot easier, and a lot of faster.”

“Good luck convincing any of the professors of _that,_ ” said Kay sourly.

“Professor Kenobi’s not so bad,” Cassian said carefully. “He’s gotten better about my transfiguration lessons.”  

“When are we getting a _real_ Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?” Jyn said, fiddling impatiently with the crystal. “Professor Longbottom is alright, but it’s not the same.”

“Headmistress McGonagall said there might be one next term,” said Kay. “I think they’re traveling here, from India. Lady Mothma mentioned it.”

“Tryouts for Quidditch are coming up,” said Bodhi eagerly, looking up from his books. “Is anyone going?”

“I am,” said Jyn immediately and Cassian and Kay shook their heads. “Kes Dameron said he wanted to see me there, after he saw my flying lesson with Madame Hooch.”

“You could get Seeker,” Bodhi said; being a first year, he couldn’t try out for Quidditch until next year, much to his disappointment.

Jyn shook her head. “I’m hoping I’ll get Beater. Biggs Darklighter is our Seeker, he’s _really_ good. Shara Bey said she’s trying out too; I hope she makes it.”

“Are _you_ going to get caught up in this absurdity too?” Kay asked Cassian acerbically, ignoring the glare from Jyn and reproachful look from Bodhi.

“I have too many classes to even _think_ about trying out for Quidditch,” said Cassian, not too regretfully. Flying on broomsticks was all very well, but none of it had anything on _fútbol_.  “There’s going to be a dueling club too, I might join that.”

“A dueling club?” Jyn asked, perking up. “Really?”

“For third years and up, _pequeño salvaje_ ,” said Cassian not without some fondness. “And anyway, what do _you_ need to join a club for? You get into duels all on your own.”

Jyn put her nose in the air, not really minding the teasing. “And I _win_ them too, thanks very much. And what’s a _salvaje_?”

“Savage,” said Cassian wryly, “like what you just did that to that accent.”

Jyn bared her teeth, mock ferociously.  Kay and Bodhi exchanged wry glances.

They were too young for crushes really, but it was obvious (to anyone looking) that Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor had a certain kind of--pull, on one another.  There was no other way to describe it. Shara Bey, a second year Gryffindor like Jyn, once teased her about it a little, and Jyn had been defensive.’

“It’s just Cassian,” she’d said and that was the truth of it, so far as she knew it.

Just--Cassian.

* * *

 Kes Dameron had been told, multiple times, that he had to be insane, or at least slightly mad, to let a five-foot nothing, a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet second year girl be the Beater of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Kes had grinned at them all and said every time in reply, “You seen her fly? Or fight? She’ll be fine.”

Jyn took to being Beater like a duck to water. She was fast, ferocious and almost impossible to hit. She took dives no else dared to and had aim so good one of the professors even suggested bending the third year and up rule for the dueling club. But headmistress McGonagall vetoed that idea. “We’ve all done _that_ before,” she’d said tartly. “Let the girl grow a little more.”

She made friends with Shara Bey, the other chosen Beater, and Wedge Antilles, one of their Chasers. Another girl in the Gryffindor tower, Maia, began to make friendly overtures and Jyn found she rather liked having the other girls around.

But while Jyn excelled at Quidditch, her school grades began struggling. Her Ancient Runes were far ahead of even the fourth years and her defensive charms continued to outstrip her peers. Transfiguration and potions continued to elude her, much to her frustration, and if Kay hadn’t slapped her textbooks down in front of her during one of their study sessions, it was likely she wouldn’t have tried at all.

Kay, for all that he was a good tutor with Cassian, did not succeed nearly as much as he did with Jyn. It came to the point where Bodhi and Cassian had to sit between them in order to keep it from coming blows. So it fell to Cassian to help her with her more difficult subjects.

“Do you help the other students in Hufflepuff?” Jyn asked one evening, glaring at her potions homework. Professor Slughorn wasn’t exactly a _strict_ professor, but Jyn disliked his class instinctively, with his chuckling and peering and his _my dear girl will you join us one evening?_ He never invited Kay or even Cassian, who was truly gifted with potion-work.

“Some of the first years,” Cassian said, carefully trying not to get ink blots on his parchment.  “I do it all the time at home, with my younger sister.”

“How many siblings do you have?” Jyn said, seizing on the opportunity to talk about _anything_ that wasn’t potions.

The look Cassian sent her informed her that he was not fooled. “I have two older siblings, David and Sylvia. And Andrea, my younger sister. I’m the middle child.”

“Poor Bodhi’s the youngest of six kids,” Jyn said reflectively. “Me and Kay are only childs.”

Cassian leaned over and tapped her parchment with the end of his quill, free of ink. “Finish this Jyn and I’ll show you the disarming charm I learned in the dueling club today.”

Jyn beamed at him. “You’re my favorite Hufflepuff.”

“I’m the only one you know,” Cassian replied, trying not to smile, or be too pleased with her declaration. “Start your work, Jyn.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear with me guys, as we get through this exposition, because things are about to get _very_ interesting from here on out.


	3. the third year, the fall term: part one

_Now_

There is a woman, here, in the court. She is pale and beautiful in a horrible sort of way, as if someone carved her out of ice and bone. Her mouth is a red wound in her white, white face and bones and stones with holes worn through them are woven in her black hair, clicking together as she moves. Her dress is so deep a red that when the long, ragged lace train drags behind her as she walks, it looks like a streak of blood across the snow.

The woman laughs when she sees her for the first time, cowering in the roots of a tree, exhausted from running from the hunters, cold, vicious creatures that carry iron in their hands, despite how much it hurts them. The woman smiles like a knife looking for places to cut and says, “Hello, little cousin.”

The woman says her name is the Morrigan, and she chooses the slain. Where the Morrigan walks, dark things follow. She strokes cold, hard fingers through her hair, braids bones and stones into it, like her own, and croons to her, “Little star, little dragon, little lion, oh, you’re far from home, aren’t you, pretty little thing like you? You don’t belong here, do you, sweet girl?” The Morrigan smiles when she calls her _sweet girl,_ displaying teeth that look like they’ve been filed into points one moment, and then they look like iron the next. She runs a red, red tongue across her lips, patting her cheek almost too hard to be considered _fond._

The Morrigan doesn’t hide her. The Morrigan thinks it’s _funny_ when she runs, terrified and frantic, to escape the sound of horns and baying hounds and high, cruel, silvery voices. The Morrigan laughs and laughs and laughs when, terrified, she drives a nail right between the eyes of one of her pursuers, and kneels in the snow, weeping and shaking at the sight of ink-black blood. The Morrigan doesn’t hide her, but she doesn’t tell the other hunters where she is either. Hunters with stone knives and hard faces, asking over and over again, _“Where is she? Where is she? Where is she, the little cousin, the little rabbit, the little weasel--”_

As angry as the hunters become, they never dare challenge the Morrigan when she sends them on their way, jeering and mocking at their inability to find her.

The Morrigan smiles whenever she creeps out of whatever hiding place she’s been in, the bones and stones braided so tightly into her hair they hurt, and strokes a long nail down one cheek, almost scratching, but not quite.

“Little star,” she says, smiling with those awful teeth, “little star, my darling sweet little morsel, you and I are more alike than you know, aren’t we? Those _boys_ of yours, that you want to get back to so badly? What makes you think they’ll want you, after all this?”

“It’s not my fault,” she whispers, trembling at that hard, steely fingernail pressed against her cheek.  “It’s not my fault, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want--”

The Morrigan shakes her head, chiding almost, like she’s a mother scolding a stubborn child. “Oh my dearest sweetest,” and the endearments curdle horribly like fruit gone to rot, “are you _sure_ ? Because, my pretty pale little wolf, you run with us like you were _born_ to. That poor stupid hunter that got iron between his eyes? You _liked_ doing it, didn’t you? You liked being strong and terrible, don’t lie. _Didn’t you?”_

The nail is pressing in harder now, against her cheek. She shuts her eyes and thinks, _please please please…_

“No,” she whispers, “I didn’t. It was wrong and cruel and I didn’t want to do it, but _I had to_ and _I’m not sorry.”_

The words escape her like the rasp of the blade on stone. She opens her eyes to see the Morrigan smiling at her, like she’s a pet that’s done a new trick. “Bloodthirsty little star," she says almost fondly, “you and I are one and the same. Selfish, reckless, greedy. All this power screaming in your bones and you’re scared of your own shadow.”

And that might be the most frightening thing of all.

* * *

 

_Before_

The whole of the Great Hall was swirling with gossip when Jyn, Cassian, Kay and Bodhi come in off the train. Necks were craning towards the High Table where the professors sat and the talk was interspersed with words like “professor” and “Defense” and “they just came in, from India--”

“Look,” Cassian says, nudging Jyn’s shoulder as she rose on her toes to look. “New professors.”

“For DADA?” asked Jyn eagerly as Bodhi craned his neck.

“What else could they possibly be here for?” Kay said acerbically, his greater height enabling him to look over all of their heads. For once, Jyn was too distracted by the possibility of two professors to give him a good, well-deserved kick in the shins.

There _were_ two new chairs at the High Table, seated by Headmistress McGonagall. Two men, one of them had a staff leaning by his chair, the other had a thick dark hair hanging loose and shaggy around his face. Kay made a surprised noise. “Look--Professor Slughorn is missing. There’s someone new in his place.”

“Houses, find your seats, please,” said McGonagall, her voice somehow finding every corner of the Great Hall without the use of magic. The four of them split off to their respective tables, Jyn skidding into the first available seat at the bench and Bodhi sliding in next to her.

McGonagall was on her feet. “Silence please,” she said firmly, and the Great Hall quieted down instantly. “Students,” said McGonagall as every table turned to look at her, “as you can see, this year we have three new professors, two of whom will be taking over for Professor Longbottom for Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Tables cheered and students pounded the wood, and Professor Longbottom grinned. They all liked him enormously and he was a good, competent Dark Arts professor, being a member of the now legendary DA, but everyone was excited about the prospect of new professors.

“Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus will be joining our staff from now on,” McGonagall continued. “I trust you will make them feel welcome and represent your houses honorably.”

More was said, probably, but Jyn wasn’t listening. She was too busy studying the two new professors.

They were both older than say, Professor Longbottom, but not quite as old as McGonagall. The man with the staff leaning against his chair had clouded, milky blue eyes and short cropped black hair, and a pleasant, serene expression, as if he was well-pleased with life and all it offered. The man sitting next to him had on a much more severe expression, and the front parts of his long black hair was bound in two tails framing either side of his face. Their robes were very patched and well-traveled; they might’ve been mistaken for vagrants, but for the subtle, but unmistakable feeling of power coiled in them both.

The third new professor, now in Slughorn’s chair, was an older, pleasant-faced man with a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee, threads of silver through it. His skin was richly brown and his robes might’ve been mistaken for a neat Muggle suit, if not for the silver eagle pin on the lapel.

“Professor Slughorn has announced his retirement,” McGonagall said, recapturing Jyn’s attention. “He has decided that he will pursue academic life from _afar--”_ unless it was Jyn’s imagination, McGonagall seemed to shoot a stern look at the direction of Ravenclaw, where Kay sat-- “and we wish all wish him, of course, a happy retirement.” McGonagall did not look as if she meant that, entirely. “Our new potions professor and Head of Slytherin House is Ambassador Bail Organa, currently on loan for us from MACUSA and the American Diplomatic Services.” The man sitting in Slughorn’s chair nodded pleasantly towards the students, a slight smile lingering around his lips. Jyn liked the look of him a great deal more than Slughorn. “We are privileged to have new educators in our midst,” McGonagall finished. “Now, let us begin our yearly sorting.”

The Hat appeared as dramatically as it ever did, floating above their heads, singing a song this year, and the Sorting began.

When McGonagall reached the O’s, she got to, “Organa, Leia!” and a few whispers ran through the crowd as Ambassador Organa leaned forward expectantly. A girl who was even shorter than Jyn strode down the aisle, carrying herself with an unmistakable air of authority. She was as pale as cream and her brown hair was done in an elaborate crown of braids.

The Hat settled on her head for exactly all of ten seconds before shouting “SLYTHERIN!” to the clear delight of Ambassador Organa and enthusiastic cheers from the table with the silver and green banners. At the High Table, Jyn saw Headmistress McGonagall stifle what looked like a disapproving sniff, but she carried on calling out names.

When she reached the S’s, she called out, “Skywalker, Luke!” and a boy with blond hair and blue eyes eagerly rose to his feet and almost ran down the aisle to meet the Hat.

“Look at Professor Kenobi,” Bodhi whispered to Jyn. She glanced at him, and their transfiguration professor looked strangely, unbearably sad for a moment, before the expression vanished into genial interest.

Luke Skywalker had the hat on for also only ten seconds before it proclaimed “GRYFFINDOR!” and Jyn and Bodhi raised their voices to cheer and pound the table enthusiastically. Professor Kenobi also clapped, but his eyes were very far away.

The S’s continued, and when McGonagall called, “Solo, Han!” in a tone that was barely concealed disapproval, a boy who was at _least_ fifteen rose to his feet from the crowd of first years and sauntered down the aisle like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“He must be another transfer student,” Jyn whispered to Bodhi.

The Hat was on Han Solo’s head for about a minute before declaring “SLYTHERIN!” and the boy now _swaggered_ down the aisle towards the Slytherin table, amidst cheers, whoops, even some hollers and boos. He didn’t seem to mind any of the reactions.

Once the sorting was _finally_ finished, the welcome feast began in earnest. Unlike previous years, students did not have to stay at their own tables, and many of them would go sit with friends with other houses, or even push the tables together in some cases. Bodhi and Jyn piled their plates high with food before going to join Cassian at Hufflepuff and Kay joined them shortly after.

“Han Solo,” said Kay disdainfully. “I’m surprised the administration allowed him to come in.”

“Is he another transfer student?” Jyn asked, spreading butter on one of her rolls. Bodhi was digging into a large bowl of curry and Cassian had a plateful of tortillas in front of him.

“He’s been suspended from _several_ magical academies in the past four years,” Cassian said, focusing on his food. None of it was even close to what he had back home, but it was still pretty good, all things considered. “Hogwarts was one of the only ones who would still take him. He’s an American halfblood, or so he says. He keeps changing the story every time you ask him.”

“How do _you_ know this?” asked Bodhi curiously.

“I hear things,” said Cassian mildly. “A bunch of the older students were talking about it. He has a reputation.”

Jyn looked over her shoulder at Slytherin table, where the new transfer student seemed to already be in the midst of a heated argument with Leia Organa. “And the girl? Organa?”

“Bail Organa’s adopted daughter,” said Cassian, already digging into a bowl of _mole_ and rice. “He was one of the ambassadors from America during the war. I think he and Professor Kenobi might’ve fought together.”

Jyn dug into her bowl of turkey and mashed potatoes, letting her friends get some food into them before asking her next question. “And the new professors? You hear anything about them?”

Cassian glanced toward the high table. “Not much. I think they were Aurors once, on loan from China. They’ve been on the road for the past three years, I heard one of the sixth years say. Îmwe, the blind one, they say he lost his sight _and_ his wand against Death Eaters at the Battle of Hogwarts. Malbus, the other one, he guarded his back.”

“It’s good to get a new pair of professors,” said Bodhi, scraping up his curry. “Not that professor Longbottom was bad, but--”

 _“Anyone_ would’ve been better than Gerrera,” Kay muttered darkly.  

There was a pause in the air as the three younger ones turned to look at Kay, who digging into his chicken with a single-minded determination.

“What was exactly _wrong_ with Saw?” Jyn asked, point-blank. It hadn’t escaped her that she hadn’t heard from Saw in almost two years, and neither had her parents. She had overheard Lyra talking about it with Galen. They were rather worried about it, but it wasn’t exactly unusual for Saw, to vanish for erratic time periods and then show up again.

Kay looked up from his plate and scowled. “I don’t think I should tell you. You’ll get all defensive and _prickly_ if I do.”

“I am not _prickly,_ ” said Jyn, stung and then immediately turned to Cassian and Bodhi. “Am I?”

“A hedgehog has less spines than you do,” said Kay flatly and Jyn whipped around to glare at him.

Bodhi squeezed her arm. “ _Sometimes_ you can be a little...fierce. But we like you like that.”

“ _I_ don’t,” said Kay and Cassian hastily interceded, “Kay, what were you saying about Saw Gerrera?”

Jyn, still scowling, turned expectantly towards Kay.

“He was only here for about half a year,” said Kay, still seemingly determined to organize every piece of chicken on his plate. “But when he came back from the winter holidays, he was...changed. He kept talking about ‘true power’ and ‘the seat of our gift.’ Even before that he started being...hostile, to the half bloods and muggleborns. He didn’t exactly favor the purebloods either, but it was obvious. He kept talking about courts and rings when he got back, and he kept jumping at his own shadow and he made everybody nervous. I think McGonagall was on the verge of dismissing him before he left.”

Jyn sat back in her seat, frowning. “Saw’s speciality is wild magic. Creatures and things like that. And Saw isn’t even a pureblood himself. He’s--” she paused, thinking about it, and realized slowly, “Actually, I don’t _know_ what Saw is.”

“No one did,” said Kay flatly. “But there still plenty of wizards and witches reluctant to take the job of the Dark Arts Professor here, after Voldemort jinxed it, so it’s hard to find a competent one who will.”

“I thought the jinx was broken after the war,” said Bodhi.

Kay shrugged. “The stories are still there, though.”

Talk ceased momentarily as the desserts appeared, and Jyn ate two strawberry trifles without even really tasting them. Next time Caine the family owl arrived, she resolved, she was going to send a letter home asking about Saw.

* * *

 This was the first year Jyn was sharing a class with Cassian, DADA. She was unreasonably excited about it, and also intensely curious to see the two new professors in action. She hadn’t quite decided yet it she _liked_ them, because they were replacing Saw, and some part of Jyn still wanted to be stubbornly loyal to him, especially after what Kay had told them at the welcome feast. Her parents had known Saw for _years._ Kay was mistaken about him, or at least, he had misunderstood.

The DADA classroom had been undergone several renovations over the past few years, since the ending of the war and the variety of professors that had used it. This year, the space was wide open and full of light, the walls bare and the floor cleared. No desks, tables or benches. Only a wide mat in the middle of the floor.  “Shoes off, please,” called Professor Îmwe cheerfully as the crowd of students cautiously shuffled in, “you can leave your socks on, if you like.”

Jyn kicked off her boots and Cassian carefully stepped out of his neat school shoes. Sticking close to each other, they wove their way to stand near the edge of the mat in front of the rest of the students. Professor Malbus was leaning against the wall, seemingly totally uninterested in the proceedings.

Professor Îmwe got up, his own feet encased in soft soled slippers. He wore loose, flowing pants and a tunic closed at the front, no wizard’s robe or hat in sight. Professor Malbus was dressed similarly, only he had a holster for a wand on the outside of his thigh, not unlike the official Aurors, Jyn thought.

“Welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts,” said Professor Îmwe, the edge of his staff out before him as he walked. He had no wand that Jyn could see.

 _Well, of  course not,_ she told herself. _He’s_ blind.

“You can call me Chirrut, or Professor Îmwe, whichever is more comfortable to you,” he went on. “What shall they call you, Professor Malbus?”

All the students turned to look at Professor Malbus, who glowered back at them expressionlessly. “I don’t care,” he said flatly, his voice a rasp of rock salt, in stark contrast to Professor Îmwe’s cheerful, even tones.

“Him, you can call Baze,” said Chirrut with a mischievous smile. This got a slightly nervous giggle from the younger students as Baze rolled his eyes.

“We will doing mostly practical lessons in this class,” Chirrut went on. “You’ll notice no desks or books. We _will_ ask that you do _some_ homework, but Baze and I did most of our learning out in the field, so that’s what we will teach you.”

“How is he supposed to teach if he can’t see?” Jyn heard one of the other boys mutter and Cassian frowned in his direction, though admittedly she had been thinking the same thing.

Chirrut’s head cocked ever so slightly to one side, but his smile never wavered, in fact if anything, it _grew._  “I see you have some doubts,” he said, purely delighted with the small pun; behind him Baze rolled his eyes so hard Jyn was mildly impressed, it took _effort_ to look that unamused with someone.

“Then perhaps a demonstration is in order,” said Chirrut, mischief in every corner of his face. Jyn already found herself liking him, despite her best efforts not to.  “Professor Malbus, if you would?”

Baze cast a deeply unimpressed look at the other professor, before slowly straightening up from his lean and marching over. “It’s _Baze,_ ” he said flatly. “None of this ‘professor’ nonsense.”

Jyn leaned forward to get a better look at Baze’s wand, it was made out of dark, gleaming wood, carved to look like a spiral, and the handle was wrapped around and around with red silk thread, a small collection of jade pendants swinging from it. All the students instinctively backed up to the walls, clearing the space; Jyn backed up too, almost right up against Cassian and was startled to note her head almost fit directly under his chin. When did he start being so tall, and more importantly, when would she stop being so _short?_ Mama said her growth spurt was due any day now.  

The two professors faced each other in the middle of the mat, Baze with his wand held loosely in his hand like a true professional, Chirrut with his staff out before him. The whole class held its breath, waiting for the first spell to be cast.

Without warning, with one expect flick and no audible spell that Jyn heard, Baze cast a bright bolt of magic at Chirrut and Jyn gasped in spite of herself. With no visible difficult, Chirrut simply raised his staff and cast it aside, magic bouncing over their heads and off the walls.

Later, neither Cassian or Jyn could say how long it lasted. It seemed to go on forever and take no time at all. How every single spell or curse Baze sent towards Chirrut, the other man sent it aside or countered it with his staff, nothing touching him. Chirrut even spun it in a wide, whirling circle, forming a blur in the air and casting spells back to Baze, that he blocked with cool ease. As suddenly as it began, it stopped. The two men halted, faced each other and bowed deeply, before turning to their audience of stunned students. It took about a second for someone to recover and let out a whoop of delight, wonder, and astonishment and for the rest of them to chime in. Jyn turned to Cassian and saw his eyes were huge and shining with excitement.

“Well then,” said Chirrut, still smiling serenely, “Shall we begin?”

* * *

 Within the month, _everyone_ was talking about the new Defense professors and how much they enjoyed their classes. The lack of serious reading and essays helped, but the physical lessons were every bit as demanding and exacting as studying was. Jyn thrived in their lessons, lit up with it. She loved the physical exertion and practicality of it. Kay was not quite so fond of all the dodging and casting, but he came it to with the same determination he did everything. Cassian too, found himself improving vastly under Chirrut and Baze’s teaching; it helped they had such a wide background of spells and wizarding traditions to pull from. They had studied in China, Japan, Korea, India, Africa, North America _and_ South America. Chirrut in particular was keenly interested in Cassian’s wand and Mexican wizardry, which like Chinese wizardry, paid close attention to agriculture and enchanted objects. “If you have the time,” Chirrut advised Cassian, “please lend some your _Bruja_ spellbooks to me and Baze. We would like to take a closer look at them.”   

Bodhi was nervous at first, but second and first years were all gruffly referred to by Baze as “little brother” or “little sister.”  They were soon the most popular class in Hogwarts.

Cassian also found that Professor Organa was Puerto Rican, by way of New York, and it was such a profound relief to speak Spanish with him, even briefly, that it almost brought tears to his eyes. Bail Organa was clever, patient and intrigued by the young transfer student from Mexico and found Cassian’s skill with potions to be on par with the fifth and sixth years. The lack of the “Slug Club” helped considerably; Professor Organa did not tolerate any of the blood purity ideology that previous heads of Slytherin House did. It also helped that his daughter Leia was possessed for a fierce and unrelenting capacity for _fairness_ and she had the ferocity and poise to make even the stiffest and most set in their ways pureblood back down. Han Solo proved to be clever and creative (when motivated and not when he was bickering with Leia over some trivial matter) and though they shared the same classes and were both transfer students, Han drove Cassian somewhat insane. Jyn, Kay and Bodhi all listened to Cassian’s complaining about him until they were collectively ready to scream.

In the meantime, when not swamped with studying, classes or keeping his friends out of trouble, Cassian realized that he had--a slow moving, slow growing but _considerable..._ preoccupation, that was the only word he could think of for it, with Jyn. He had known her for three years now, they were friends, best friends really, and though Cassian did develop a few mild crushes here and there on a few other girls in his class, he found himself coming back to and coming back to Jyn. Her look of elated ferocious joy on her broomstick, bat aloft as she drove away Bludgers; her look of focused concentration in DA; her affectionate resting against Bodhi, or even her exasperated arguments with Kay.  How she looked delicate and fragile when she was the exact opposite of those things; how she was fearless and reckless and how she was deeply, unendingly loyal to the people she cared about. Her green eyes, flecked with gray and silver and even gold, if you looked hard enough. And Cassian looked. Often.

He did not talk about it. He did not even understand it.  But it was _there,_ a part of him, as much as his bones and his magic and his right hand.

He was going to--well, not tell her. Definitely not yet. But he was going to--hint at it. Maybe. Sit closer to her during mealtimes. Split the last jam trifle with her. Share the homemade tamales his mother sent him, before the Christmas holidays. The first time Cassian shared his family’s Christmas tamales with Jyn, she ate three of them.

He _was_ going to do something, though. He was. He just needed the right plan for it.

All of Cassian’s intentions vanished into non-existence at the beginning of October, because that was when Saw Gerrera returned to Hogwarts.  

* * *

 Jyn had not known what to think when the news hit. Saw, returned? _Now?_ And--for what, exactly?

“He wants his old position back,” said Kay flatly, when the four of them were discussing it in the Gryffindor common room, supposedly studying. “I heard Lady Mon and Professor Bail talking about it. They were--not pleased.”

It seemed more like Kay’s capacity for understatement, but Jyn had glimpsed the professors’ faces when discussing it quietly amongst themselves. None of them were happy about Saw’s return.

“They aren’t going to replace Baze and Chirrut, though, right?” asked Bodhi. Quidditch tryouts for the position of Seeker were starting soon, and he was a little more preoccupied and anxious than usual.

“Of course they aren’t,” Kay said, but he didn’t sound as insufferably certain as he always did. “Why would they? Malbus and Îmwe are perfectly adequate and sufficient teachers.”

Jyn and Cassian glanced at each other. _Perfectly adequate and sufficient_ was quite possibly the highest praise they had ever heard Kay bestow on any of the professors.

“Have you spoken with him yet, Jyn?” asked Cassian. He knew that Jyn’s worry about her godfather had not faded since the beginning of the year.

She shook her head, slow. “No, I haven’t. He’s been--busy.”

 _Busy_ was one word for it. _Actively avoiding_ _her_ was another.  It was strange--no, it was more than strange, it was _weird._ And worrying. She’d known Saw since infancy, for Merlin’s sake. How could he be prowling and skulking about the grounds, getting into shouting matches with Baze and even Headmistress McGonagall? Not even showing up for meals? Keeping to himself in the farthest edges of the school? He wouldn’t even take a room in the staff quarters, he transfigured some trees and rocks into something resembling a hut like the gamekeeper Hagrid’s. Only not even Hagrid would go near him, or let any of his creatures near him.

“There’s somethin’ that’s not right with that fella,” he said flatly when Jyn brought it up during Magical Creatures. “And I don’ need four legs and a tail to tell me what’s what.”

Jyn had wanted to be angry, to defend her godfather against this suspicion and hostility, but Saw wasn’t leaving her much room to do it with. She’d only glimpsed him in places since he’d been back, and he hadn’t actively sought her out either. She’d written to her parents to let them know, but so far hadn’t gotten a reply yet. Surely they must be aware of this new strangeness of Saw’s? They’d known him for years.

“Well,” said Bodhi, trying to come up with a more cheerful topic, “I’m trying out for Seeker tomorrow. How good are my chances, do you think?”

“Seventy-six point four percent chance of failure,” said Kay promptly and Jyn immediately kicked him in the leg.

Kay scooted his chair out of her reach and glared at her like an offended cat. “My legs are longer than yours and I can kick considerably harder.”

“Then don’t be an arse to Bodhi,” Jyn snapped.

“I was not being an _arse,_ I was being _honest--”_

“Enough, you two,” said Cassian firmly, but it devolved into another argument. “Jyn, you’re a member of the team. How do _you_ think his chances  are?”

Jyn tapped the end of a quill on her paper as she replied slowly, thinking about it, “I think Skywalker might try, never mind the fact he’s only a first year, but he’s from Australia and knows all kinds of new tricks, so Kes might consider him. I know a couple of third years and second years who might try. Kes is looking for light, fast and quick responses on the broom, which I _know_ is your specialty, Bodhi. So I’ll practice with you if you want, but you _can’t_ freeze up. Our first game against Ravenclaw is next month and we have to get you into the shape for it.”

Bodhi, despite Kay’s comment, looked marginally more reassured and Jyn put her worries about Saw out of her mind, at least for the time being.

* * *

 It started with the dueling club.

Now an official third year, Jyn had entered the dueling club with Cassian and was soon taking on fifth and sixth years. Not many could match her; most people took one look at her short stature and delicate face and dismissed her. Then Jyn would promptly knock them out of the ring; Cassian would watch from the sidelines, a tiny smile on his face, watching his best friend beat challenger after challenger.

Saw Gerrera abruptly appeared at one of these matches; he lurked in the corner of the room, hunched over and silent. His presence made everyone nervous, but Jyn frowned when he came in and when she had a spare moment between practice duels, she went over to talk to him.

“Hello Saw,” she said carefully, her godfather seemed to barely notice she was there. “How are you?”

His eyes flicked towards her and away again. Saw had been bald when she’d met him when she was eight years old, now his hair had grown out, a tangle of uncombed iron grey and white curls. He looked... _old_ now, and bent over, as if carrying something heavy on his back. “So,” he said, still not meeting her gaze, “have they sent you over to talk to me?”

Jyn blinked, aware of the stares on her back, probably Cassian and Professor Malbus, who oversaw parts of the dueling club. “No one sent me, Saw. I haven’t seen you in awhile, and I was starting to worry--”

“Worry!” spat Saw, glowering at nothing. “Deception! Lies! They plot against me, Jyn, all of them! They hide the truth from us! They do not wish to know what I know! They do not care about the knowledge I seek!”

He turned to look directly at her then, Jyn couldn’t repress the urge to jerk back. There was a furious, glittering, _hungry_ look in Saw’s eyes and the corner of the room that he was in seemed to grow darker.

“Have they sent you to get the truth from me?” he growled. “I hear the whispers. I know what they think. And _you,_ little dragon, little star, bold wee wolf, I know what lurks in your blood, _they_ have told me so, _they_ have _warned_ me, and I will not--”

A heavy hand fell on Jyn’s shoulder, she jumped wildly and turned to look up into the grim face of Baze, who looked about two second away from drawing his wand. Saw looked at Baze and fell silent, his face stony.

“Come, little sister,” said Baze coldly. “One of the sixth year Slytherins wish to duel you.”

Saw did not stay long at the dueling club after that.  But Jyn was uncharacteristically silent for the rest of the day, her brow creased with thought.

* * *

 It was the first game of Quidditch, Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw. Bodhi, the newly appointed Gryffindor Seeker, clutched his broom close to him, shoving the goggles he wore up his head, looking both terrified and excited. Jyn, a two year veteran on the team, stuck close to him, relatively immune to his nerves.

Kes Dameron stood before his team, hands propped on his hips. He didn’t have quite the same legendary manic enthusiasm as Oliver Wood did, but he was efficient and confident and willing to take risks.

“This is our first game of the season, team,” he said, voice firm and clear. “Play sharp, play fast, don’t rush it. Jyn, Shara, you two have point on our Seeker.  Wedge, Gavin, Corran, you’re with me. Ravenclaw is no pushover and we’re going to give them a fair fight and a clean game. Everybody with me?”

Nods, agreement. Bodhi strained to appear taller, more confident.

“Rook.” Kes’s eyes were kind. “I know this is your first game. I know you’re one of the fastest fliers we’ve got. Play smart and keep your eyes open, okay?”

Bodhi nodded, eyes ablaze with determination and Jyn had never loved him more.  Kes held out his hand and everyone laid theirs on top of his. “Now, everyone, on three--one, two, three--”

“LIONS!” shouted the team together and marched out the pitch.

The Ravenclaw team rose in the air on the broomsticks, bedecked in blue and bronze and black. Jyn mounted her broom and waited until Bodhi was in the air before soaring over to take her place near the goalposts. Down below, Kes and the Ravenclaw captain shook hands on the field and took to the air.

“Teams!” shouted Madame Hooch, grayer perhaps than she’d been in years past, but still able to outfly the students, “ready your brooms!”

Jyn spared one quick glance at the crowd. Cassian promised he and Kay would sit in the Gryffindor stands, wearing their colors. She couldn’t see them, but she felt better knowing they were there.

Madame Hooch raised her clenched fist, the tiny golden wings of the Snitch beat against her hand frantically.

“On your marks! Set! _GO--”_

Released, the Snitch vanished into the air, the other balls went flying. The two teams flew at each other, red and gold against bronze and blue. Jyn sent a Bludger back to the Ravenclaw beater and the game was on in earnest.

Bodhi proved to be an excellent Seeker, fast and quick and diving away from both the other players and balls. Approval and support was screamed from the Gryffindor stands and even the Hufflepuff ones. Jyn sent ball after ball flying, her bat an act of war. “Erso! Erso! Erso!” chanted Gryffindor and she thought, just for moment, she heard Cassian’s voice amongst them, cheering for her. It made her want to fly harder, faster, knock balls straight into the atmosphere.

The game was nearly tied by the third quarter, Gryffindor in the lead by only five points. Twice Bodhi had dived for the Snitch and twice it had eluded him and the Ravenclaw Seeker.  The shouting from the stands was getting louder and fiercer.

Jyn, right in the thick of the other players, saw two things: one, a flash of gold hovering high in the air and Bodhi catching sight of it. And the second thing: a Bludger diving straight towards him, Shara having missed it by inches.

There was no time, no time to do anything except the absolute obvious. If she tried to use a spell, it wouldn’t be fast enough, plus she’d get kicked off the field for illegal use of magic. So she did the absolute obvious thing: she dove towards the Bludger and got in between it’s path and Bodhi.  

The Bludger slammed into Jyn full force and she felt something _crunch_ in her ribcage. _Ow,_ her first coherent thought and then the next thing was, _wait I seem to be falling._

She was falling.  

There was screaming from the stands and from where he was in the Gryffindor stands, Cassian’s heart was in his mouth. Kay was gripping his shoulder to keep him upright. In the professor’s box, Headmistress McGonagall and Professor Longbottom reacted first, wands out and slowing her down magically, before she hit the field below with a more or less painless thud.

Jyn landed on the pitch, knocked breathless, staring up at the sky and trying to breathe carefully. There was definitely something wrong with her ribs. _Well, that was dumb,_ she thought to herself. But she didn’t regret it. She started to push herself up--and then rethought it. The ground was comfortable enough and her arms didn’t seem ready to cooperate with her yet. From what felt like high above her head, she could hear the crowd roaring. Bodhi and Shara landed next to her on the field at about the same time, the latter furious and the former white-faced and shaking, apparently almost forgetting about the Snitch clutched in his hand, struggling to escape.

Professor Longbottom made it onto the field, almost running, a stretcher floating magically behind him. “You caught the snitch?” were the first words out of Jyn's mouth.

“Of course he caught it you daft idiot,” Shara said wrathfully.

“Spoken like a true Gryffindor,” said Professor Longbottom wryly, kneeling down besides Jyn. “Harry would be proud. Can you stand, Miss Erso?”

“I shouldn’t like to risk it sir,” said Jyn as truthfully as possible. “I think it’s my ribs, mostly.”

Soon enough, she was in the infirmary surrounded by her team and her boys, their faces worried, anguished (Bodhi), exasperated (Kay) and furious (Cassian). “You heard Madam Pomfrey. It's just a few cracked ribs. I'll be right as rain by tomorrow,” Jyn tried to soothe them as much as she could. It didn’t seem to be working.

“You FELL from TWO HUNDRED FEET UP,” said Kay (trust him to know the exact distance).

“It's not like no one was around,” Jyn argued, “Professor Longbottom stopped me, so I’m fine.”

“That is not the point,” Cassian managed to say without shouting. He was very proud of that, as proud as he could be, after watching his best friend fall off her broom from two hundred feet.

"No, the point is that I could have either gotten to Bodhi in time to catch him when that bludger hit him in the back of the head, or I could get there in time to get between the two,” Jyn retorted, seemingly under the impression this was perfectly good reasoning. “Madam’s good, but I didn't want to risk it.”

No one was appeased by this logic.

“You couldn’t have used _magic_ ?” Kay demanded. “That's practically what it's _there_ for!”

“There wasn’t _time_ , Kay,” Jyn said again. “Stop acting like this is a big deal. I’m fine. Or I _will_ be fine, which is nearly the same thing.” Jyn shifted on the bed and winced as her left side complained about it. “Kes, tell them this is what Quidditch players do.”

Kes glared, not in the least mollified by the fact they won. “ _Sometimes_ this is what Quidditch players do. Not _all the time_. Don’t you dare make a habit of it.”

 _I wouldn’t do that for anyone but Bodhi_ , Jyn almost said, then stopped herself. It was hardly flattering to her teammates, but it was true. She had, at some point after realizing the path of the ball’s trajectory, decided that getting between her friend and the immediate danger was worth whatever risk. She’d never done anything like that for anyone else on the team.

They were her friends but they were not _hers_. Not like that.

Then she turned to Bodhi himself, who still looked deeply upset at having inadvertently caused her harm.  “I’m _okay,_ Bodhi. Stop looking so anguished. Madame Pomfrey only wants to keep me overnight because that’s how she is. I’m alright, don’t worry so much. And hey--” she gave him the gentlest knock on the arm she could manage, “you won your first Quidditch match. Congratulations.”

Bodhi smiled rather shakily and said with completely honesty, “I’d rather you be safe than winning the match.”

“Well, never again. I’ve learned my lesson,” she said as firmly as she could.  

 _Rather too much to hope for_ , Cassian thought bitterly, as he sits by her bedside, listening to the Quidditch team's play-by-play of the rest of the game, until Madame Pomfrey kicked them all out. He went back to Jyn’s bedside after dinner, sneaking her some food from the dinner table.

She was sitting up in bed in complete defiance of Madame Pomfrey’s orders, absently going over some of her notes for History. She looked up when he came in and eyed him somewhat warily as he took his place in the chair near her bed. “Are you going to scold me now?” She knew perfectly well he had been holding back with the rest of the team around.

“I would if I thought you’d listen at all,” Cassian replied a little sourly.

“I _had_ to do it,” Jyn said, putting aside her papers. “It was _Bodhi_.” Watching Cassian’s face carefully, Jyn added, “If it was me up there, you would’ve done the same.”

He would have, but he wasn’t about to encourage Jyn and her reckless self-sacrificial behavior.

He studied her for a moment longer, as she carefully ate the ham sandwich he snuck her. It was growing, building on his tongue, what he wanted to say, what he wanted to tell her. _I like you, I_ like you _like you, I want to be more than your friend, I want you to meet my family and my Granny Gwen and my Abuelita Maria, and my brothers and sisters and cousins and I want to meet_ your _family, and your dog, I want to see you running wild on the coast, the salt breeze in your hair._

But the words wouldn’t come. They stuck in his throat like salt, not yet ready to be spoken.

“Don’t do that again,” was what he finally allowed himself to say. “You--you scared me. Don’t do it again. Please.”

Jyn’s head came up and she looked at him, _into_ him he would’ve said if he could’ve found the words for that, with those enormous, spell-casting green eyes of hers, like dark forests. “I won’t,” she said, with a serious sort of ring to it, like she was taking an oath. “I won’t. I won’t. I promise.”

 _What I tell you three times is true,_ his Granny Gwen would say. _Three times said is a vow that cannot be broken, my peaceweaver boy._

Jyn knew that. And he knew he could trust her to keep that promise.

* * *

 The day after Hallowe’en, after Cassian, Jyn and Bodhi had all gorged themselves on sweets and Kay refused to join in because he was a spoilsport that way, on November first, _Dia de los Muertos_ , when Cassian privately planned to light a few candles near his bed and leave some bread and sweets by them, in case any of his ancestors followed him across the waters and needed sustenance and his prayers, Bodhi Rook took it upon himself to talk to Saw Gerrera.

Bodhi wanted to be brave. He wanted to live up to his house. And it was clear to him, at least, that Saw being here was disrupting the students, bothering and upsetting Jyn. Especially after the last conversation she’d had with Saw. And after Jyn had gotten hurt because of him, Bodhi felt there was no other way to try to repay the debt, than by trying to reason with her godfather.

It happened during dueling club. Bodhi was there, not to participate, but just to watch as Jyn took on a sixth year Gryffindor, Wedge Antilles, one of her teammates. Wedge was good at defensive spells and charms  and Jyn hadn’t dueled him yet, so it promised to be an exciting match. Saw was there, lurking in the corner, watching his goddaughter silently. Bodhi approached him cautiously, the way one might an old serpent that might be toothless, but still had a crushing, powerful grip.

At first, he thought Saw didn’t see him, or wasn’t paying any attention to him. Bodhi cleared his throat. “Um, Mr. Gerrera-- _Professor_ Gerrera--”

“I see you, half blood,” Saw rasped out, not taking his eyes off Jyn, who was practicing a few spells in the corner with Cassian, her preferred dueling second. “What do you want?”

Bodhi hesitated. He could think of no polite way to say it, and he’d been raised to respect his elders.  “Sir, you’re--you’re upsetting my class. You’re--” he paused, trying to find the right words for it, “You’re upsetting _Jyn.”_

Saw continued to watch his goddaughter, as if Bodhi was not even speaking. Nothing daunted, Bodhi tried again. “Chirrut and Baze are good teachers,” he said, trying to explain, trying to be polite. “Everyone likes them. No one wants them _gone._ And Jyn is getting worried about you, because she wants to defend you and you’re not really acting like she can--”

“Where are you from, half blood?” said Saw softly, still watching the other students. Still watching _Jyn,_ with a strange kind of hunger in his eyes that made Bodhi uneasy. “A local boy, maybe?”

“No, I’m from South London,” said Bodhi, puzzled.

“Hmm. And your parents?” Saw pressed. “You get the gift from your father, perhaps?”

“No, my mum’s a witch,” said Bodhi, increasingly confused. “I’ve got six older brothers and sisters, my dad’s the same--sir, what’s the _point_ of--”

“The seventh son of a seventh son,” Saw murmured. He looked straight at Bodhi now, eyes cold and gleaming. “My goddaughter took a Bludger for you, half blood.”

There was now definite menace in Saw’s voice.  Bodhi fought the urge to back away. “I didn’t ask her to do that. She would’ve done the same for anyone.”

“Oh, would she?” said Saw, still with that dangerous soft contemplation. “No, half blood, she wouldn’t have. She _chose_ you. You’re her people now. What say you? Will he do, do you think?”

Bodhi felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight as he became aware of a slithering, slinking presence, like something cold and dark wrapping coils around him, strangling tight.

“No, the blood’s not strong enough in him,” Saw agreed, as if talking to someone who just stood at his shoulder. “Still, does he bother you, the boy, Bor Gullet? Well, you may do what you like with him. It is of no consequence to me.”

Jyn, about to step onto the mat with Wedge, without any warning at all, heard a terrible, ear-shattering scream pierce through the air. Everyone whirled around, to see Bodhi on the floor in front of Saw, _screaming,_ and Saw simply sat there, watching him without expression, as if Bodhi was some new insect whose reaction he was studying.

Jyn didn’t even remember moving. One moment she was on the mat and the next she was charging straight Saw, wand at the ready. “ _Expelliarmus!”_ she screamed, without even thinking about it and sharp blue light erupted from her wand and went towards Saw. There was nothing in her head except _defend Bodhi, defend Bodhi._

Saw did not even flinch at the sight of the spell hurtling towards him. Something huge and dark _loomed_ up in front of him and seemed to... _eat_ the spell. The blue light vanished into darkness.

Jyn skidded to a halt in front of Bodhi, who still was screaming, and knelt down besides him and grabbed at his flailing hands, trying frantically to see if he was wounded. “Bodhi, Bodhi, Bodhi, it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay, I have you, let me look at you--”

“ _Erso!”_ bellowed General Draven’s voice from somewhere. “Move aside, _now!”_

Cassian’s voice was in her ear, his hands on her shoulders, pulling at her. “Move, Jyn, move, let the professors look--”

“ _No!_ ” she cried, desperate, but General Draven, closely followed by Lady Mon and Baze, appeared besides Bodhi, who was _still screaming._

“Take him to the infirmary,” said Lady Mon sharply, “Professor Malbus and I will go. Davits, tend to the students.”

Baze picked up Bodhi like he was a child and the two adults Apparated with a sharp _crack._ General Draven immediately turned to Jyn, who still had Cassian’s hands on her shoulders, holding her back. “What did you do, Erso?”

“Nothing!” Jyn cried, aghast. “Saw--” She stopped, choking on the next words, _Saw did it,_ how could he have done this? _How_ had he done this? There were no marks on Bodhi that she’d seen, but for him to use the Crucio curse _on a student,_ in a _class…_

General Draven spun around again, saying angrily, “Gerrera--” He stopped. Everyone turned to look.

Saw was nowhere to be seen.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you all remembered when I said things would get interesting, right?


	4. the third year, the fall term: part two

_Now_

He left her he left her he left her _how could he leave her?_  How could he _abandon_ her, here, in this place? Cold and cruel and beautiful, shimmering shining with things that weren’t really there, and the things that were there were the stuff of nightmares. How could he have _lied_ to her, _tricked_ her, lured her and left her?  He had been family, he had been her friend, he had taught her how to fight and how to fly and then he put an iron nail and a knife in her hand and said, _don’t let them catch you._

She doesn’t think she hates him. But--he left her--he pushed her in--he hurt her-- _why?_

It’s getting harder to think now. To remember. Maybe she’s making it up, maybe it _never_ happened, maybe all it’s ever been is the woods and the cold and the snow and the dark hunters and baying hounds and the Morrigan’s terrible smile and even more terrible words. Maybe there never was such a world as the one she remembers.  Maybe she made it all up, in her head.

 _Ridiculous,_ chides a quiet voice in her memory, one that she clings to with every bit of her remaining strength. _Absurd. Just because it happened in your head doesn’t mean it’s not real._

She needs to start running again. She needs to find the circle. And when she does--she’s going to tear her way out.  With her teeth, if she has to.

* * *

 

_Before_

Headmistress McGonagall summoned healers from St. Mungo’s, Bodhi’s parents. It did not make much of a difference. Madame Pomfrey and other healers could find nothing wrong with him, physically, and there was no sign of any kind of magical abuse. Saw hadn’t used the Crucio curse on him--he’d done _something else._ And that was what was making the gossip and speculation abound all over Hogwarts.

Jyn took it personally. Saw hurting Bodhi, Bodhi being in the infirmary and the whispers that he’d screamed until Madame Pomfrey magicked him to sleep, that his parents were being sent for, that now they had to find a _new_ Seeker, and Bodhi hadn’t even gotten a chance to play more than _one_ game--

Luke Skywalker, the student from Australia, was the new Gryffindor Seeker. When it was becoming clear that Bodhi wasn’t going to get better anytime soon and their next game was fast approaching, Kes unashamedly bent the first-year rule and recruited him.  To make matters worse, Luke was a natural--a prodigy, they said, second only maybe to Harry Potter himself and some other old student of Professor Kenobi’s that died in the war--no one knew what _his_ name had been.

Jyn wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate him purely and simply on principle, because he was taking Bodhi’s spot and he wasn’t her friend. But she couldn’t do that with a clear conscience, so she gritted her teeth and slammed Bludgers across the field harder than really necessary.  

Worry for Bodhi and what Saw had done to him consumed Jyn. She couldn’t understand _why_ or _how._ Or even what had been _done_ to him. Bodhi had screaming nightmares for three weeks in the infirmary, even the arrival of his parents hadn’t helped. She took to sitting with him in the infirmary, especially at night. Talking to him quietly, holding his hand, reassuring him that he was safe, that she was here, and she wasn’t leaving. Cassian would sit with him too, or Kay. But Jyn seemed to doing it almost as penance, as if _she_ was somehow responsible for Bodhi’s current condition--something that made no sense but she couldn’t be talked out of it.  

Cassian noticed. Cassian _worried,_ because one of his best friends was in an infirmary bed--he couldn’t bear it if the other one was too.  Kay worried too, but he showed it by snapping at Jyn, which did nothing to improve matters. “Either you stay down here and _eat_ something or I’ll Body-Bind curse you right here,” he threatened after the third time in a week that Jyn had skipped a meal to go sit with Bodhi.

Jyn bared her teeth, no playfulness in it now. “Go ahead and _try.”_

“Stop it,” Cassian said wearily, resting his head on his hand. “The both of you. Please.”

Jyn and Kay subsided, the two of them glaring at each other still.

“Jyn,” Cassian said quietly, managing to pull her attention from Kay, “have you eaten?”

She glowered at him across the table, her plate empty and fork untouched. “I’ll eat later.”

“You have a test in DA,” said Cassian inexorably. “Eat something now.”

Jyn glared again and grimly snatched a piece of toast off the nearest plate and crammed it into her mouth, as if she was punishing the bread for whatever had been done to Bodhi. More or less satisfied, Cassian finished eating his oatmeal, as Kay ate every single piece of his cereal with deliberate and insulting precision.

Bodhi had been their center, Jyn conceded to herself as she forced herself to eat some eggs with her toast. He’d balanced them all, from Cassian’s reticence and her occasional belligerence and Kay’s...everything. And now with him gone, she felt horribly off-kilter. And she could not get rid of the dreadful creeping suspicion that Saw attacking Bodhi had _something_ to do with her.

So she tried to eat her breakfast, whatever she could, when she looked up and saw a first year Hufflepuff she didn’t recognize, a wide-eyed, slight boy with hair that changed color by itself.   _Metamorphmagus,_ Jyn thought, a vague sense of recognition. Hadn’t there been some kind of fuss about this kid at the beginning of the school year? She couldn’t remember now.

“You have a shadow,” she told Cassian. The first year stopped uncertainly when he saw Cassian sitting with her and Kay, and then inched towards the Hufflepuff table. She directed Cassian's attention towards the kid with a nod of her head.

Cassian glanced over and said mildly, “Teddy, _¿cόmo estás?_ ”

 _“Bien, gracías,”_ said the kid, his hair now somewhere between green and blue.

Jyn abruptly started to feel herself scowling. Since when did Cassian teach anyone who wasn’t _her_ Spanish?

Cassian kicked her lightly under the table and she aimed her scowl at him. “Rough night?” he asked, as if that was much of a distraction.

“Yes,” she said flatly, as if he didn’t already _know,_ and dragged a cup of tea over to her.

“You could’ve sent for me,” Cassian said quietly. “I would’ve sat with him so you could get some sleep.”

She should have done that. She _nearly_ did do that. But she hadn’t. Because it was her fault. She didn’t say it, because the first year boy was a stranger for all that everyone knows who he is. And it wasn’t an argument she wanted to have in front of the whole of the dining hall. “I’ll be fine. Just need some more tea.”

Cassian clearly didn’t believe it, but rather than further ask her about it, he turned to the kid and asked questions about his classes. Jyn drank her tea and brooded. She woke up some more as she got something into her, tea with plenty of sugar, enough eggs to make Cassian stop watching her out of the corner of his eye.

The kid was looking at her curiously, but kept his attention on Cassian, big brown eyes watching him like he was the last authority on everything. It shouldn’t have irritated her as much as it did.

Kay looked her over. “You’re sleeping tonight. If you go to the infirmary I'm going to tell Madam Pomfrey not to let you in.”

It was exactly the conclusion she'd just come to, but hearing it from Kay made her bristle. Jyn glared at him half-heartedly, but suddenly found herself lacking the energy to argue. So she finished whatever remained of her breakfast and headed to class, trying to reason out why the sight of Cassian being around other people who _weren’t_ her should bother her so much.

(Not that she didn’t understand the urge to follow Cassian around herself. And she couldn’t really blame the kid. She was just tired and cranky. That had to be it.)

As she left, Teddy watched her to go with big eyes. "Is your girlfriend always so grumpy?"

"She’s just worried about our friend,” said Cassian absently and then the first part of the sentence registered. “Wait, she's not my--”

Teddy gave him an innocent look. "You act like she's your girlfriend."

"He’s got you there," Kay said under his breath.

"Be quiet," Cassian muttered and turned back to Teddy. "Jyn isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Just someone you spend all your time with,” Kay went on, pretending to be entirely absorbed in his breakfast. "And worry about constantly when you haven’t seen her all day.”

“That sounds an awful lot like Aunt Hermione about Uncle Ron,” observed Teddy and it was officially too early in the damn morning for this. Cassian looked about the table hopelessly for some coffee.

Kay paused mid-bite. “...do you mean Hermione Granger? And Ron Weasley?”

Teddy shrugged. "I guess."

Kay leaned forward across the table, clearly ready to start quizzing him, but Cassian shot him a look. “Leave it Kay.” There was something about his voice that brooked no argument. Kay subsided and Teddy shot Cassian a grateful look. “Are you still going to the Day of the Dead gathering?”

Kay’s head came up again at the mention of it and he glances at Cassian. “I thought the Day of the Dead was November second.”

“It is,” Cassian said. “Professor Organa and I organized it for then, but with Bodhi…”

Kay nodded, needing no further explanation. “So you’re doing it now, then?”

Cassian shrugged. “Better now than not at all.”

“Can I come?” Teddy asked hopefully and his hair turned a deep shade of fuschia. “If it’s okay?”

“Of course,” said Cassian, temporarily distracted from his worry. “Bring some candles. Kay?”

His friend shrugged and returned to his breakfast. “There’s no one I wish to remember. Enjoy yourselves, though.”

Professor Organa had organized a Day of the Dead event for earlier in the month, sensing Cassian’s longing for the traditions of his home. For Cassian who believed strongly in remembering the dead, being known for the dead you're related to was still odd. The British preoccupation with bloodlines, he supposed. He didn’t quite understand it himself, but he knew Teddy was an orphan who lived with his grandparents, and he was very interested in the event when Cassian told him about it.

In the evening, after classes were done, Cassian took Teddy to the alcove where Professor Organa was setting up tables, enchanting candles so they floated in midair, lighting up the room with gentle golden light. There were tables with names on them and portraits with subjects that moved or spoke, or photographs of people. Cassian knew that many of the people there were victims of the last war and it wrung his heart to see so many of them were barely teenagers or young adults.

Many of the other professors showed up. Not all at once, but they drifted in and out, most of them conjuring up a small bunch of marigolds, some of them leaving behind small gifts by the photographs or portraits. Some of them seems told Teddy stories about his parents, amusing stories of their school years that Teddy's extended family didn’t know.

The ghosts came by too, surprised and pleased by these offerings. Some of the ghosts wore modern clothing, and Teddy looked hungrily around at each one, as if looking for something.  
Cassian did not expect any of his ghosts to be present. An ocean was a long way to go, and there were plenty of prayers in Mexico for them to settle on. It was enough that he was here, remembering them.

Teddy's shoulders drooped when the celebration came to an end. He hadn’t seen anyone he recognized among the ghosts and none stopped to talk him, however briefly. Cassian put his arm around his shoulders and squeezed gently. “It’s okay, _hermanito,_ " he murmured. “It’s okay.”

"No one is truly gone as long as they are remembered." This was from Leia, who brought a wreath of marigolds and a pair of sugar skulls she decorated herself, by hand. She handed Cassian the marigolds and gave Teddy the sugar skulls. "Here. Put this by the altar. To remember them."

Cassian remembered that Leia was adopted and her birth parents were gone, victims of the last war. She would understand Teddy pretty well.

"That's nice of you," said Cassian quietly, watching Teddy arrange the sugar skulls carefully in front of the photograph of his parents, surrounded by their friends in life.

She shrugged. "My dad liked your idea of having this. We don’t really do it at home, but my mom's Filipino, and we put candles by the pictures of her mom.”

There was a faint shimmer in the air besides Leia, and just for a second, Cassian saw a woman with her dark, knowing eyes stand by her shoulder and an impression of something else, gone too quickly to make out. He looked over at Teddy and saw a man with scars on his face standing by, smiling sadly down at his young son. He blinked and they were gone again, like they were never there. But he knew better.

So he hugged Teddy again, who was still sniffling a bit, and took him back to the dormitories, quietly reassuring him. After he went to the infirmary and woke up a dozing Jyn with a hand on her shoulder. “Come on," he said softly, "let's go," and he almost, almost, almost added, “ _mi amor_ ,” like his own father might to his mother, but swallowed the words before they could be spoken. He shouldn't even be thinking such a thing, but it was there in his head now, inescapable.

Jyn shook her head, not to refuse him, but to help wake herself up. "He just fell asleep."

"Then we won't wake him," Cassian replied. "Let's get you to bed and I'll be here when he wakes up."

She didn't fight him on it. Not this time. Cassian held onto her arm as she got her feet under her, then walked her back to Gryffindor Tower. As they stood before the Fat Lady’s portrait, she turned to him, eyes cat-like in the darkness, taking in light. "Cass," she whispered, unexpectedly fragile, "he's going to be okay, right?"

He couldn’t answer that honestly, though it hurt him to. "He will,” he tried to reassure her anyways. “You won't let him be anything else.”

She turned to look at him and he thought, ridiculously, that she was going to hug him. He half raised his arms in anticipation for it.  "Is this my fault?" she asked without looking at him, her voice still small.

"How could it be your fault?” he protested, knocked breathless at the notion.

Jyn opened her mouth to explain, but what was there _to_ explain? That Saw's reference to her bloodlines brought to mind what the Sorting Hat said to her, almost two years ago now? That was some hidden _wrongness_ to her blood that couldn’t be explained? So she just shrugged unhappily and because she was far from home and desperately lost, went into his arms for a hug.

Cassian’s arms around her were light, like he wasn’t sure exactly what to do. She screwed her own eyes shut and held on tighter, hoping he would do the same. He did, arms slowly tightening around her shoulders. (He'd been waiting to see what she wanted.) Jyn sighed and relaxed against him. Tried not to think of the hug she’d been expecting from her godfather. He was still taller than her, and her head fitted under his chin and her ear rested on his heart, the beat steady and firm. She took comfort from it.  

They stayed like that for awhile, until the Fat Lady finally looked over at them and asked crossly, “Are you coming in or not?" Jyn let go of him reluctantly for all that, and they bid each other an awkward goodnight.

* * *

 

In the wake of the attack on Bodhi Rook, the Ministry of Magic sent over an Auror to discuss with the dueling club and the present professors what had happened. It was all over the school in a matter of seconds that they were sending none other than Harry Potter himself. This fresh piece of gossip was enough to almost wipe out the speculations on what Jyn Erso had to do with the affair, if anything.

Jyn had been in England long enough to know how important a figure Harry was to wizarding Britain, but neither of her parents had been heavily involved in the last war, so her exposure to him had been limited. Still, not even this news was enough to make her stop worrying about Bodhi, who was scheduled to leave the infirmary soon, but no word on if he expected to stay out the rest of the school year.

 _The_ Harry Potter turned out to be a man younger than her own father, with the famous scar hidden under an untidy tangle of black hair. The round frames glasses were the same as the stories. His skin was warm and olive-hued, making the by now mythical green eyes stand out all the more brightly. Jyn stayed near the back of the room, half hidden behind Baze, who looked comfortingly unimpressed by the famous _Harry Potter._ It was a relief to know it took a lot more than the savior of wizarding kind to impress Baze.

Cassian stood with the rest of the students, most of them wide-eyed, worshipful at the sight of Harry. Cassian’s hard-eyed stare and blank face stood out among them. He had heard the whispers, but had no context for this somewhat untidy looking man with the glasses and unkempt hair.

Auror Potter scanned the room once, only glancing over briefly at Cassian’s carefully expressionless face, and the fact Jyn was almost hiding behind Baze.

“Good morning,” he addressed the club. “I’m Auror Potter. I’m here to ask you all some questions about what happened between Saw Gerrera and Bodhi Rook.”

Baze shifted from where he was leaning against the wall next to her, and Jyn glanced up. He looked down at her like maybe she should say something, but then looked back out at the crowd of awestruck students. Most were being too helpful, too eager to get the famous man’s attention. The likelihood that her name was  going to get dragged into this is high, but Jyn wasn’t going to volunteer to be the center of attention.

Jyn made use of Baze's shadow, fingers worrying at her crystal necklace.  She didn’t understand why all the students were so eager to volunteer information, to tell him what they’d seen, or offer speculation on what happened. There had been nothing _to_ see. Just Bodhi screaming, just Saw watching.

No, not nothing. There had been that shadow that swallowed up her spell, but surely someone had mentioned that to him. Three teachers had been there. Surely, surely one of them saw it too. Or maybe they hadn't. Maybe she had been imagining things.

She didn't know anything. She didn't _know_ anything. She didn't know _anything._

So she kept repeating to herself.

Harry exchanged a few brief questions with Cassian, who alone had not spoken up to offer any information. Did he see anything? No, he hadn't. What was Bodhi doing? He didn't know. Had he spoken to Saw before? No, never.

One of the students suddenly piped up with,  “Erso tried to disarm him--”

Jyn tried to glare at the speaker. The size of the crowd and her relative lack of height made this difficult, as well as the bangs that are always hanging in her eyes now that Mama wasn’t around to trim them on a monthly basis. Heads and eyes turned, including Auror Potter. Baze very casually shifted his stance so she was more or less behind him.

“You tried to disarm him, Miss Erso?” Auror Potter asked.

"She tried. Didn't work," Baze volunteered for her. "Man wasn't holding a wand.”

"But the spell hit him?" Potter persisted. “It made contact?”

An uneasy silence settled over everyone, remembering the incident. "Seemed to vanish," said Baze. "Into darkness."

Whispers ran through the crowd of students and Jyn ducked down further. "Not any kind of ward I'm familiar with,” Baze continued, frowning at the students for all this chatter, and they hushed, “and I've spent the last twenty years wandering.”

Harry's eyes landed on the girl standing in her professor's shadow. "Miss Erso?"

Jyn looked up at Auror Potter, and then shrugged. “I just wanted to get to Bodhi. I wasn't--I don't know what I saw, really.”

"Do _you_ know why they might have been talking?"

Jyn shook her head, because she still wasn’t really ready to face the fact that the only thing the two had in common was her. And Bodhi was sweet and gentle, and he knew how troubled she'd been over Saw's behavior.

“And no one noticed Gerrera leave the room?" Auror Potter continued.

“We were--everyone was looking at Bodhi,” Jyn said. “We didn't know what had happened.”

Every in the room shook their head. The commotion caused by whatever had happened to Rook had been more than enough of a distraction for an army to have left the room without anyone seeing.

Auror Potter let everyone go down to lunch before they missed it entirely. Cassian noticed Teddy standing across the hall from the classroom they've been using as he waited for Jyn to maneuver herself out of the crowd. Cassian turned to catch up with Jyn, only briefly noticing Teddy going right up to Auror Potter, completely comfortable. The Auror looked down and smiled at him, fondly.

"Hey, Harry! I heard Professor Flitwick tell his class you were here."

"Hello Teddy," said Auror Potter. "Yes, I'm here for today. Are you doing alright?"

Teddy shrugged. School was school and a lot of people seem to know too much about him, which wasn't anything he hasn't written home about already. Besides, he wasn't a baby; he wasn't going to complain about it now.

"Did you meet Cassian?" Teddy looked around to see if he could spot the older student.

"Cass! Cass come here and meet my godfather!"

Cassian was halfway down the hall with Jyn when he heard his name being called. Jyn froze next to him as he slowed down and glanced back.

“Go on to lunch," he said when he saw the look on her face. (He interpreted it as he had a better chance of getting her to stop fighting than he did of convincing her to go back with him.) (He was mostly right.)

He went back to the classroom, trying not to worry about Jyn not eating without him there. Teddy was there with the Auror, beaming brightly. "Cass, this is my godfather, Harry. Harry, this is my friend Cass.”

 _Ayyyy…_ Cassian rubbed at the sore spot between his eyes, feeling idiotic. “This is the other reason why people are weird around you." He hoped it didn’t sound like he was accusing Harry of anything, more like he was only just now putting two and two together.

Harry smiled, a little. "People tend to do that. Cass, is it?"

“Cassian Andor," he introduced himself properly automatically, holding out a hand.

Harry took it and gave it a firm shake. "Teddy says you've been looking out for him."

Cassian resisted the urge to shrug uncomfortably. "It's no trouble."

“Still," Harry insists, "thank you. From his family and mine."

Cassian tried not to let his discomfort with being thanked show on his face.  It was such a simple thing, and didn’t seem worth being fussed over.  " _D_ _e nada_ ," he finally settled on. "I should go catch up with my friends before lunch is over."

Harry watched him go before remarking, “He seems like a nice kid."

Teddy nods. "He doesn't know about--about mum and dad, or you. He doesn't ask me any questions about it.

“He's really patient, too. Even if his girlfriend isn't.” Teddy made a face. "Cass says she's just upset because they're friends with the boy who got attacked. But then Kay, who's one of the Ravenclaw prefects, says that Jyn’s always looking for a fight even when she's in a good mood--"

School gossip tumbled out of Teddy at the fastest speed he could manage to talk at. It just made Harry smile to himself and think that some things never change.

He stored away the face and eyes of Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso, for future reference. They might show up again in this investigation.

* * *

 

The week after the American holiday of Thanksgiving, after Han Solo and Leia Organa managed to single-handedly convince the staff to give them the weekend off, and the house elves to cook a proper feast for the school, Bodhi Rook returned to class.

He was thinner, quieter, hollow-eyed and thin cheeked. He’d never been afraid of the dark before, but now he had to have a light with him at all times and he couldn’t maintain focus during class or lessons. He was jittery and easily spooked and while Bodhi had never been _skittish_ before...the attack, terror seemed to become a part of him. And that was the thing that Jyn could not forgive, under any circumstances, that Saw had done something to make her quiet, soft-spoken, nervy friend someone who was afraid of shadows.

It was hard for him to sleep at night, so Jyn continued her habit of sitting up with him, sneaking into the boys' dormitory and just talking, sometimes holding his hand, glaring at anyone who objected or threatened to tell a prefect. There was something Jyn Erso’s glare that made even the loudest complainers pipe down.

Bodhi struggled to keep up in class now, and it took the combined efforts of Jyn, Cassian and Kay to keep him afloat. The professors were understanding, for the most part. Professor Kenobi didn’t press if he struggled with transfiguration, Professor Organa gave him simpler tasks in potions. Baze and Chirrut were the only ones who made him do the rest of the exercises with the rest of the class, and though he was sweating and shaking by the end, he did look a little better. Like he once had been.

“I _know_ I wasn’t always scared,” Bodhi confessed to Jyn late one night. “I can remember not being scared all the time, of everything. But when I try to do anything that I used to do, like fly or cast a spell, it’s like something is--something is choking me.” He didn’t describe it further and Jyn gripped his hand so hard she felt the bones in them shift. Saw had done this. Saw was responsible. _Someone_ was going to pay for it.

* * *

 

As Christmas grew closer and Bodhi showed little signs of improvement, the following actions of Jyn Erso went down in Hogwarts history--the first of many.

It started, typically enough, with an argument between Jyn and Kay about the respective heights of their house towers. Everyone agreed, in retrospect, it was one of their more ridiculous, unnecessary arguments, but this did not stop Jyn _or_ Kay from insisting their house tower was taller than the other. It was a petty, stupid argument that escalated despite the attempts of Cassian to mediate and Shara Bey threatening to hex them both if they didn’t shut up about it. Kay's argument had involved a lot of complicated math and the fact that the bit of land under Gryffindor tower was actually several feet higher than that under Ravenclaw tower and so none of that extra height mattered. And _then_ Jyn decided to escalate the hostilities.

Settling the argument and getting one up on Kay would certainly make her feel better, and she wanted desperately to make Bodhi laugh again, like he really meant it.

The first part of the plan was a yardstick Professor Kenobi had used as a prop in a lesson. Jyn... _borrowed_ it for this particular scheme, and a musty old Gryffindor flag from the locker rooms down at the Quidditch pitch. She stole it--well, appropriated it--and it turned her actually stolen yardstick into a serviceable flagpole.

It was pouring rain the night Jyn flew up to the very top of her tower, the yardstick with the Gryffindor banner floating out behind her like the lance of Joan of Arc. The wind and the rain made things trickier; sticking charms didn’t really like the wet any more than more conventional attachment methods. But Jyn was stubborn and determined and she was not going back inside without settling this challenge to her house's reputation.

Wind and rain poured down. Jyn had to wipe water away from her Quidditch goggles, in order to see anything. “You,” she said to the weather at large, “not going to beat me.”

In a moment of inspiration, remembering something Cassian mentioned once about Muggles, she held out her wand, envisioned what he described and commanded, "ACCIO DUCT TAPE!"

From fifteen miles away in the local Muggle village, an astonished night watchman witnessed a roll of duct tape shoot out from a desk and out a window and go out through several walls. He decided he’d been drinking on the job too much.

A solid roll of silver tape slapped into Jyn’s hand. Grinning triumphantly, she flew back up to her goal. Between the tape and the application of a couple of different sticking charms, Jyn managed to cobble everything together. She let go of her contraption carefully, prepared to dive after it if the wind yanked flag and flagpole away, but the old banner just snapped harshly in the wind.

Jyn managed a salute to her triumph. "Lions!" And then she began the long dive downward.

The next morning, headed out to the corridor, she heard the buzzing of students chattering louder than usual and grinned.

“Did you see--did you hear--who could've--I heard it was--”

Jyn could not resist a prideful saunter to the Great Hall for breakfast, a spring in her step she hasn’t had since before Halloween. Cassian and Bodhi both met her there, and they only had to take one look at her face to see the evidence of what she had done.

“Jyn Erso, you _promised,_ ” said Cassian, sounding utterly fed up. “Are you out of your thick head?”

“Jyn, _really_?” said Bodhi, and she grinned at them, purely, gleefully unrepentant.

“ _That’ll_ shut Esso’s trap for him, won’t it?”

“You’re ridiculous,” said Cassian, exasperated. “Risking your life for a _prank--”_

“For the _honor_ of my house,” Jyn retorted. “It’s a time-honored tradition, I’ll have you know, Andor.”

She and Bodhi were eating breakfast with Cassian, the two of them laughing with the other Gryffindors who were buzzing from the news as Cassian shook his head at all of them. Ravenclaw tower had some very good views of Gryffindor tower, and right now those two tables were the most segregated ones in the dining hall.

Kay, at his table, loomed over the bench and roared across the crowd, "THIS INSULT WILL NOT STAND, ERSO.”

“You're more than welcome to take it down," Jyn called back cheerfully. "Be careful, it's still raining out there,” knowing full well Kay had never cared to have a broom.

And really, the entire argument was pointless and childish because the astronomy tower was actually the tallest one at Hogwarts, but right now the rest of her house was chanting her name, led by the Quidditch team and Bodhi had that look on his face when he knew he ought to be the peacemaker in the group but he thinks the entire thing is actually funny which had been the point…

Cassian was trying to look unimpressed and unamused, but the corners of his mouth were twitching too much for true severity.

The Headmistress was the one who got the excited Great Hall to calm down. "Miss Erso,” McGonagall said sternly, “what was the exact purpose of adhering a yardstick to the top of Gryffindor tower?"

Jyn rose to her feet, utterly respectful, except for the heathen grin on her face. “Because now it's taller than Ravenclaw, Headmistress.”

Even Minerva couldn't keep a straight face at that. Even the professors started chuckling. All the speculation in the school for the last month had been around Saw Gerrera and Bodhi Rook and the likelihood of Gerrera returning to the school. Now it was about the flag on the peak of Gryffindor tower and what Ravenclaw is going to do in return. "At least you had the sense to do it after playing against them at Quidditch," McGonagall finally said.

The Gryffindors cheered and the Ravenclaws booed and Jyn cheerfully accepted two days worth of detention. She laughed across the room at Kay, in that moment, utterly fearless. “A flag is just what Gryffindor tower needed, wasn't it, Bodhi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case no one could tell, I firmly subscribe to poc!Harry (and poc!Hermoine, but we'll get to that later).


	5. the winter court: the treachery of Saw

_Now_

There are cracks in the stones. Finely shredded holes in the weave of spells.

She takes the iron nail and the knife and _rips_ at them, magic a thousand years in the making coming undone in her desperation and determination. There are screams from beyond the circle, cries of rage and hope and fear and despair.

_“Let it fall let it happen let it come undone, little cousin, little star, little knife, reckoning and ruination and salvation--”_

The spell that was set down however many years ago will hold itself even she does tear a hole through it. But she only needs a small space, just one loophole to slip through. The gap only has to be big enough for her. It only has to fit her. Then she can get out. Then she can be free.

There is a man here in the court, a huge hulking brute of a fae that straps iron to his skin, walks with open wounds and oozing sores on his flesh and one of his names is _Cutter_. He has hunted her all this time, only ever seconds away from catching her, and now, he corners her in the circle, a brutal length of iron clutched in his hand, swinging it back and forth as lazily as a looter does a bat.

“Where do you think you’re going, little rabbit?”

She spins around, wand out, ready to hurl a curse. “Get away from me.”  

He laughs at her, at her wand, at the iron nail and knife in her shaking hands. “Come now, little star, little rabbit, little cousin, let us be reasonable--” the words haven’t even left his mouth before that length of iron is swinging down on her in a black arc. She springs to one side, feet skidding in the snow and dirt, rebounding off the massive flat stone in the middle of the circle. Cutter laughs again, the iron bar whistling through the air. “Bare your neck down on that stone block, my fine lamb. Make it easy on yourself.”

She snarls and sends a spell of fire at the iron in his hand, making it glow red hot and furnace bright against the cold starkness of the court. He is too accustomed to pain to drop it, instead, he slams it into one of the stones; the whole circle creaks and shudders.

“Bring it down,” he snarls at her. “Come on, little cousin. There’s not much left in you, after this. Bring it down and let us out. We may let you ride with us.”

Ride with them, bringing in the Wild Hunt, huge horses and demon hounds with red glowing eyes like coal--

The iron nail she was given so long ago almost seems to be humming in her hand, a bright song of reality in this strange dream world of snow and ice. Cutter is coming, his own iron rusted and ugly and because the gap is closing, her time is running out, she points her wand at the nail and tells it, “ _Fly.”_

It doesn’t matter that it’s not the proper spell. It works anyways. The nail leaves her hand and shoots into Cutter’s, driving through his hand and into the stone behind him, as immoveable as a mountain’s roots. Cutter lets out a howl now, unable to move forward, iron piercing through his skin.

She raises the wand again, the circle singing singing singing, ready to be closed again. “Come near me again,” she says, her clothes and hands soaked in black ink blood and stones and bones swinging in her hair, “and _I’ll see you nailed.”_

The circle closes in on itself.

* * *

  _Before_

Christmas and the winter holidays arrived with all four them about to go to their separate ways. Cassian was going back to Mexico this year; Jyn, Kay and Bodhi were all going to their respective homes. Bodhi was--well, not better. Not exactly. But he could function in classes now, and there was no talk of him not returning after New Year. Jyn figured that was about as much as they could hope for.

It was just as well that Bodhi was starting to be (slowly, so very slowly) on the mend, because Jyn was finding something new to occupy her thoughts--namely, Cassian.

She was thirteen, he was fourteen; when the next school year would start in September, he’d arrive already fifteen, her own birthday was five days before Christmas. He was still growing, still getting taller, and she wasn’t, much to her own displeasure. Sharp cheekbones were starting to show against the childish softness of his face; she’d once caught him rubbing his hand speculatively across his chin, eyeing it thoughtfully in the mirror (she had teased him mercilessly for it, of course). His hair was starting to get long, growing out of the neat, beginning of the school year cut he was always had it in. When he got back from Mexico, it would be short again, as per his family’s wishes--much to Jyn’s private disappointment, though she couldn’t understand _why_.

It was beginning to occur to Jyn, in a faint, distant way, that she was beginning to want Cassian’s attention more and more; she wanted his smiles and his frowns and his attempts at stern, disapproving looks when he thought she was doing something particularly reckless or Gryffindor-like. She found herself finding excuses to be near him, to touch him, grabbing his arm or his elbow or leaning against his shoulder if they were sitting together at meals or during classes. She wanted to _give_ him things, classnotes and spare quills. When the cold weather finally rolled in for real and he couldn’t go anywhere without a coat, she wrote home and asked if mama could send an old scarf of papa’s, some gloves and a hat, because Cassian was _always_ woefully unprepared for any weather under seventy degrees. She taught him the warming spells her papa brought from Denmark, ones that lived in your gloves and socks and coat and didn’t have to be renewed quite so often. She liked the way he would say her name, how his accent curled around it. She was starting to tally in her head how many times he smiled at other people, or how many times they would exchange glances during a class or lecture, a quiet moment of perfect understanding between them. She was currently winning those.

It didn’t, or wouldn’t, make sense if she spoke of it aloud. Probably Shara would tell her just to ask him to Hogsmeade already, or the Three Broomsticks and get some butterbeer. But Jyn didn’t do it yet. It was strange and nebulous and it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it felt strangely good too, hoarding all these little moments between her and Cassian like little pieces of gold from a river. She wanted to string them on a necklace and look over them one by one, and look up to see Cassian smiling at her, in his own quiet, special way.

The day before they all had to pack and take the carriages to train station and home, the four of them would exchange gifts with each other. It had been Bodhi’s idea, and Jyn had chosen each of the gifts for her boys with care and consideration. Bodhi would receive a new set of fingerless gloves, Kay would get a joke quill that was about a foot long and colored an outrageous shade of  fuschia, and Cassian would get--

Well, she was still stuck on Cassian’s gift. She wanted to give him something special, personal, but not _too_ special or personal, because it would surely arouse comment from Kay, or anyone else. Notebooks or pens even, _Muggle_ pens, because Kay had been successful in his campaign for the use of Muggle writing materials in class, and she knew quills still gave Cassian trouble.  A new wizard chess set, because he kept having to borrow one from the other students if he wanted to play a game. Or a new broom catalogue, in case he wanted to order one--

No, the last one wouldn’t work. Cassian wasn’t interested in Quidditch in so far as she or Bodhi weren’t playing, and he was adamant that he not stress his family’s finances by buying something he really didn’t even need.  It also had to not stretch Jyn’s meager savings. Finally, she settled on a pair of thick wool socks, in Hufflepuff gold and black. He would like the color scheme, and she liked the idea of him wearing something from her.

The day before departure, Jyn brought her gifts down to the Gryffindor common room, where the three of them were already waiting.

“Well it’s about time,” said Kay snippily, though his gifts were already ready and waiting on the table, each wrapped in practical, utilitarian brown paper.  They all looked vaguely book-shaped, so Jyn resigned herself to another Muggle book that Kay insisted was _essential_ reading (she had to admit the ones by that Tolkien fellow were pretty good. It would never do to say that to Kay though). Bodhi’s gifts looked a bit haphazardly wrapped, much like Jyn’s own, and Cassian’s were neatly if plainly done, with a few festive ribbons around them.

“Bite me, Esso,” Jyn suggested, a handy term she picked up from Shara. She poured her gifts on to the table, packages rolling together. “Who’s going first?”

“We do it by order of age at home,” said Cassian. “That would make it Bodhi or Kay.”

Kay shrugged. “Since it’s a refurbished pagan holiday under Christian traditions and seeing as how the majority of wizards have no religion to speak of--”

“Excuse you,” said Cassian and Bodhi together and Jyn said hurriedly, “Bodhi, you go first then.”

“We keep _haram_ in my family,” said Bodhi, sounding a little put out, but he picked up Kay’s gift first anyways.

“And my Granny Gwen goes to Mass every Sunday and Wednesday,” said Cassian firmly. “And my Gran’s not a witch, but she’s definitely _something.”_

Bodhi unwrapped Kay’s gift, to reveal (of course) a book, a rather thin volume about Arabic and Pakistani wizards. “It was all the bookstore had,” said Kay, as if this fact was a personal affront to him. “But I thought you would find it helpful.”

Bodhi smiled, a real one, earlier indignation set aside. “Thank you, Kay.”

Jyn was next and she opened Bodhi’s gift (she wanted to save Cassian’s for last) and pulled out a length of soft blue-grey fabric, almost like a shawl.

“It’s a headscarf,” Bodhi explained. “My gran sent it. I wrote home about you and she made it for you.”

Jyn ran her hands over the impossibly soft cloth, already sensing spells and sigils that went into the weave and warp and weft, signs for warmth and good luck and protection. “Thank you,” she said, hugging it to her chest. “It’s beautiful, I love it.” She threw it over her head immediately, framing her face, the color of it making her eyes look like lake water, or deep forests. Cassian’s mouth went dry at the sight of her.

Cassian unwrapped Bodhi’s gift and smiled brilliantly; Bodhi had given him a thick pair of wool gloves, also knitted by his grandmother. “No one gets cold wearing my gran’s gloves,” said Bodhi and Cassian laughed and thanked him. Kay opened Jyn’s gift next, and sniffed at the sight of the outrageously colored quill. “ _Thank_ you,” he said sarcastically, but put it with his pile of things he was taking home anyways.

From Kay Jyn did in fact get a book, one called _The Magician’s Nephew_ , which peaked her interest and almost made her feel bad about the joke quill. Almost, because Kay said, “Something that might actually keep your interest,” which was a fairly typical remark for Kay, so Jyn was able to ignore it.

From Bodhi Jyn also got gloves, but hers were convertible leather Quidditch gloves, nice ones too, and it made her laugh because three of them had basically gotten the same thing for each other. “Not enough pocket money,” Bodhi deadpanned, the first joke he’d made in ages and Jyn’s heart lifted as if it really was already Christmas.

Cassian opened Kay’s gift, another book (of course), but this was a Spanish translation of an English history of magic and Jyn knew that Kay must have done the translation himself; that sort of thing wasn’t sold in wizard bookstores. Cassian’s smile was so brilliant and open Jyn decided to not to resent at all that it was directed at Kay.

Bodhi’s gift from Cassian was a set of smooth stone spheres, from Chirrut, Cassian said. “I asked him what he thought would be best for you,” Cassian explained. “And he said rolling these in your hands helped if you were feeling stressed or overwhelmed. They keep your hands strong too, if you ever want to rejoin the team.”

Jyn’s head came up alertly, because no one mentioned Bodhi rejoining the Quidditch team all this while, but Bodhi gently rolled the malachite and jade balls back and forth, clicking together softly. “Thanks, Cass,” he said softly, “this should help, actually. I was--I was worried about losing my reflexes.” Jyn let her shoulders drop and the tension eased.

Finally, Cassian opened Jyn’s gift and she tried very hard to look as if she was not coiled tense, waiting for his reaction. The socks tumbled out into his lap, and he picked them up in surprise, rubbing his fingers over the thick weave. “Socks?” he said, his voice surprised, but not displeased.

Jyn nodded, trying to keep her face steady. “For your cold feet.”

Maybe it was her imagination, but it was as if she could hear a clamor in the air around him, as if many things were demanding his attention all at once.

Cassian was at least reasonably sure Jyn hadn’t intended for her words to have such a loaded double meaning. But the words that had been building on his tongue for almost a year were beginning to get stronger and more insistent, until he feared he might choke if he did not speak them.

 _Jyn, Jyn, I think I like you, I think I_ really _like you, come to the Three Broomsticks with me, come meet my Granny Gwen; Jyn, I want--_

“ _Muchas g_ _racias_. Thank you, Jyn,” was what he actually said aloud.

“Do you like them?” Jyn asked, a little anxiously. They were awfully nice socks and it had taken up almost all her pocket money, but still. _Socks_. What kind of a stupid gift was _socks_ to the boy you might (almost certainly) (pretty positive) (with everything in you) like? “They should be heavy enough and I added warming spells to them.”

“I like them,” he assured her instantly. “I’ll put them on right now.” Both of them were too absorbed in this exchange to notice Bodhi and Kay rolling their eyes at each other.

Jyn finally opened Cassian’s gift, almost hoping and dreading in equal measure that it would be something like jewelry. If Cassian gave her jewelry she didn’t know _what_ she’d do. Spontaneously combust maybe, or simply give in to the ever persistent instinct to grab him and never let go.

It wasn’t jewelry. Instead, it was an obsidian arrowhead, something she knew he’d brought all the way from Mexico to remind of him of home; Cassian had been collecting arrowheads since he was a kid and she knew this one was a personal prize. He had found it in the cenote that his family went swimming in every summer when he was nine years old. She knew that because he’d told her and now he was giving it to her, and she thought that her heart might burst with everything that was in it.

Cassian had agonized over trying to find the right gift for Jyn and the arrowhead was the only thing he could think of that would suit her. Jyn always wore that crystal around her neck; she thought uncut stones were interesting and useful, her mother used them in spells. She’d admired the arrowhead when he’d first shown it to her.  The whole time he’d been wrapping his gifts, he could quite clearly hear the voice of his older sister Sylvia saying in his head, “ _You’re giving the girl you like a_ rock?”

 _It’s a_ cool _rock_ , he’d argued back. _She’ll_ like _this rock._

He would be lucky if Jyn ever spoke to him again after doing something so stupid and ridiculous and--and _lame._

“If--if you don’t like it, I have other ones,” he said, heart sinking at the lack of Jyn’s reaction.

Jyn clutched the little box closer to her, as if to keep it from being taken away. “No, no, I like it,” she burst out. “I really, really like it, thank you, Cassian. I’ll keep it always.”

“Oh for the love of god,” Kay muttered under his breath. Bodhi was just shaking his head at their two stubborn, willfully blind friends.

* * *

 The train back for Christmas came and went. Jyn came home with Bodhi’s gloves and Kay’s book and Cassian’s arrowhead, the last item wrapped as carefully as if it was a precious artifact, and perhaps it was--to Jyn at least. Cullen went mad with joy at her return, knocking her down with glee, the house was alight with candles and tinsel, in preparation for Jyn’s birthday and for Christmas--but still no news of Saw.

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” Lyra said quietly, when Jyn had uncertainly brought it up. “After your letters, I’m not so sure it would be wise for him to come here.”

“Lyra,” Galen said, as if beginning a reproach, then stopped.

Jyn looked back and forth between her parents, arm around Cullen’s neck, sensing tension swirling around her parents like the currents in a river. Both Galen and Lyra looked more strained than usual at the mention of Saw and his actions; there was something unspoken lurking in their words.

“Have you heard from Saw, lately?” Jyn dared to ask. He had never been the most consistent of letter writers, at least not for her, but for her parents, surely--

“No, dear,” said Lyra. “We haven’t.”

The conversation about Saw ended there, but Jyn remembered the anxiety rippling off the faces of her parents and hugged Cullen closer to her.

* * *

 

The sounds of horns woke her.

The night after her fourteenth birthday, December twenty-first, the winter solstice, Jyn woke in the middle of the night to the sounds of horns echoing faintly over the hills, hounds baying. Cullen, at the foot of her bed, was sitting up and every hair on his neck was bristling, teeth bared in a silent growl. Jyn swung out of bed as Cullen scrambled to join her, shoved her feet into a pair of boots and grabbed her wand from her bedside table. Cullen was growling now, low and persistent in his throat, following Jyn out of her room and down to the front door, as she stubbornly yanked it open.

Later, Jyn couldn’t say _why_ it was so important she follow the horns. They were singing in her blood, in her bones, filling her head. She dimly sensed some kind of resistance when she crossed 

the threshold of her house, something pulling at her as she opened their front gate and stepped past the rowan and hawthorn trees, but she kept going, kept moving. The moon was bright and full overhead, a silver plate against a midnight blue sky, and there were patches of snow on the ground. Jyn had paused only to put her boots on and throw on a sweater at home; she barely minded the cold.

Cullen loped at her side, barking and snarling fiercely as Jyn approached the woods she’d grown up in, the sound of the horns getting louder and louder, closer and closer. She thought she could hear voices, faint and high and silvery, like the sound a glass rim made when you traced your fingers over it, setting teeth and spines on edge.  The sound of hoofbeats, many many _many,_ against the ground, a whole cavalry just out of sight over the ridge, coming closer. Jyn, wand out, ran towards it, not even heeding the pattern on the ground made out of stone and snow--

She stumbled, tripped, felt the ground rip away from her--and the last thing she heard was the sound of Cullen howling, and the horns calling.

Jyn landed on her face in a different pile of snow, in a different forest, but the strange, thrumming energy that was building in her bones hadn’t faded. If anything, it was growing stronger and stronger, more insistent.

She looked around, struggling to get to her feet, and realized abruptly that she had landed in the _Forbidden Forest_ , outside of Hogwarts, further in than she had ever dared to go, even with Han Solo egging her on--

 _PortKey,_ Jyn thought as she stood up, her hands and knees stinging from snow and rocks. _It had to have been a PortKey--_

To take her all the way to the Forbidden Forest? _Why?_ And more importantly, _who?_

There was a hill in front of her, mist swirling around it, around the edges of--stones? About twelve stones, all of differing sizes and shapes, but definitely forming a rough circle on the hilltop. Jyn knew something about stone circles--they covered them briefly in History of Magic but not in any great detail, her father had a few papers written about them. But she’d never been to one up close before, and now, apparently stranded in the Forbidden Forest with no way of getting home, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to get closer.

But the humming in her bones, the horns ringing--they’d gotten her this far.

The stones loomed ahead, dark sentinels against the moonlight. _Go to the stones,_ some ferocious instinct of hers demanded. _Go there_ now.

Jyn made her way up the hill slowly, wand still out. The thrumming in her bones was so strong now it _hurt,_ like someone scraping nails against her flesh. The stones felt like the things Kay had once described to her called _black holes_ , drawing in light and energy and everything around it, devouring them in silence.   

“So,” rasped a familiar voice behind her, and Jyn whirled around, wand out-- “You have come.”

 _Saw_ stepped out of the shadows, as ragged and as unkempt as Jyn had ever seen him, leaning on a rough length of wood that looked like it had been carved into a serpent--

His shadow twined around him, something unseen hissing words that Jyn could not catch into the air.

“Saw,” she said, proud that her voice did not tremble, even if her wand did a little, “Saw, what is this? Where _were_ you?”  

“Here,” Saw said flatly. “I was here, bold wee wolf. Waiting. I did not think you would come--I did not think the horns would call you--but Bor Gullet said your blood was strong enough.”

“Who-- _who_ said?” Jyn asked, not lowering her wand for a second. “Saw, what are you talking about? I need to get home, _you_ need to come home, papa and mama can help you with whatever it is--”

“Help me? No, wee wolf,” said Saw softly. “They cannot help me, they are blind, they are foolish, they know nothing--they would keep you hidden, little star, shoved down into a box of your own making, you do not even know the true power in your blood--” Saw’s voice had been rising steadily all the while he’d been speaking, and the shadow around him seemed to tighten and hiss, as if reminding him of something.

“They will do it,” Saw spat at no one. “They will do it, do you hear? They will do it! And they will come back after, bringing knowledge and power and _knowing_ \--” Saw’s voice faded away and he stared at Jyn as if seeing her for the first time, something clear breaking in his eyes. “Jyn--Jyn, my child, come here,” he said gently, like the godfather she’d grown up with, “Jyn, brave little lion girl, come here, quickly. I have something for you.”

Jyn edged forward slowly, never lowering her wand, and Saw reached into his robes to pull something out, two sharp edged objects, a knife and a nail.

“Take them, wee wolf,” Saw urged quietly. “Take them both and use them well. Please Jyn, my girl, take them.”

Jyn lowered her wand then, took the nail and the knife and they seemed to burn against her hands, brightly harshly _real_ and _true_.

“This is the best way,” Saw whispered and without warning, as strong as steel jaws of a trap closing in around her, his free hand landed on her shoulder. Jyn gasped aloud at the pincer-strength of it.

“Don’t let them catch you,” Saw rasped, as the shadow thing hissed furiously around them. “Don’t let them catch you if you can, don’t look into their eyes, eat nothing they offer you, be canny, be clever, be quick--I cannot save you wee one,  I cannot teach you, Bor Gullet says this is the best way--”

“What?” Jyn gasped, the stones behind her were practically screaming in her bones, “what--”

“Run, wee one,” Saw whispered, the shadow practically rearing up behind him, a wall of dark, “Run hard and fast. And do not stop.”

And then he shoved her backwards into the stone circle.

* * *

 The world was the same and--not the same, it was still cold, still snowing, still humming with that strange weird energy--

Jyn rose to her feet, the nail and the knife still clutched in her hand, her wand in her other, looking around, her breath escaping her in panicked puffs of air.

This was not the Forbidden Forest. This was not the forest. _This was not the forest._

It was another wood, one that felt backwards and wrong, like mirror image not reflected right, and the stones were still there, still solid and inescapable, but everything else was-- _wrong._

It felt too real, too sharply defined, too real to anything _but_ false. Snow drifting down from the leaden gray sky felt like knives against her skin. The snow on the ground felt like wading through cotton balls, like the _idea_ of snow, from someone who had never seen it before, or walked in it. Jyn looked around at the starkly black trees, like drawings of ink against white paper.

“Hello?” her voice seemed both too small and loud for this huge, howling quietness. “Hello? Saw? Saw? _Saw!”_

No reply. Not even an echo.

Jyn, seeing no choice, stepped out of the circle slowly, looking around for any signs of life, of Saw, for _the way out_ \--nothing.  Panic was started to claw at her throat, her heart pounding like a rabbit’s caught in a snare. “Saw?” she said again, her voice trembling. “Cullen? Mama? Papa?”

Silence. And then--

The sound of running feet, coming up fast and sudden and _now_ \--

A group of--of-- _people_ wasn’t the right word, they were too pale, too lean, too stark, with arms and legs and torsos stretched too far and too thin, with faces so beautiful they were terrifying,  with ears that were long and slanted and _pointed_ as sharp as a knife's edge --  They were all dressed in animal furs and leathers, with stone _knives_ and spears and arrows tipped with flint--

“There she is!” they all seemed to howl in one voice. “There she is, catch her, catch her, catch her! The little cousin, the little rabbit, the little star--”

Jyn didn’t think anymore. She turned and _ran_ , for her life, for her skin, as the hunters behind her screamed with terrible laughter, giving chase. “ _Come back, little cousin, come back! Give us a good chase, a good Hunt, little cousin, little rabbit, little weasel--”_        


	6. the winter court: the words of the Morrigan

_ Before _

There is a man all in white sitting at her parents’ table. She is supposed to call him  _ uncle  _ but that word doesn’t suit him, not even slightly. He doesn’t pay any mind to her usually, and she’s glad of that, it would be like a snake noticing you. Her papa talks with him the most; conversations she doesn’t understand, about  _ ancestry  _ and  _ old blood _ and  _ summoning.  _ Her mama rarely joins in on these discussions, she listens with thin lips and an expressionless face. 

Tonight, his white robes are torn and muddy, his face scratched and bleeding. He stumbled into their house talking too fast and too wildly about  _ the Erlkönig  _ and  _ the Hunt _ and her parents had stared at him as if he had gone mad. She is supposed to be asleep, she went to bed hours ago, but she crouches on stairwell, listening. Her puppy Cullen leans against her, silent. 

“Do you not see, Galen? How  _ close  _ I was?” the man in white asks feverishly. “A few moments more--”

“A few moments more and you would’ve been a thrall for the rest of your natural life,” says Papa, not without some sympathy. “Orson, let it go.  The  _ Erlkönig _ cannot be contained, or bound. Count yourself lucky that you failed in summoning  _ Them _ this time. The Gentry does not take kindly to being meddled with.”

The man in white sneers slightly. “This coming from a man who has spent his whole life studying the courts and their ways--”

“Personal interest,” says Papa firmly. “You know my family--”

“Yes, I know  _ your family,”  _ says the man in white and both mama and papa look at him warily. “Your family is ancient, Galen, going back to the days when the courts roamed freely and without fear! Before our kind and the  _ uden magi _ bound them in stone circles and kept them at bay with iron and salt. There are  _ consorts  _ in your line, Galen, consorts of the  _ Erlkönig _ himself! And you, Lyra--” Mama stiffens-- “It’s said your family has ties to faerie itself.  You count Melusíne in your bloodline--”

“That was  _ centuries  _ ago,” Mama protests. “There are no fae running freely anymore, and we can be glad of it! Do you  _ want  _ people to be afraid to leave their homes after dark, leaving out milk in hopes of appeasing  _ Them,  _ nailing horseshoes to their doors and laying salt on the threshold and window sills?”

“ _ Uden magi  _ might fear them,” scoffs the man in white. “Do you think  _ we  _ have cause to?”

Silence greets this. “Orson,” says Papa slowly and carefully, “we wizarding kind has as much to fear from the Gentry, if not more than the _ uden magi _ . No, do not scoff at me! You know the accounts as well as I. Wizards who go too far down the stone circle, eat at the wrong table, sleep under the wrong roof--”

“But if the court were  _ bound--” _ the man in white argues.

“What could bind them?” Mama asks sharply. “What is strong enough to put an entire court under someone’s sway?”

“Blood,” says the man in white and the whole kitchen goes silent and cold. Papa stiffens in his seat and mama’s wand hand goes up. 

“Strong, ancient blood,” the man in white says again, laying out each word like they’re stepping stones. “From two old, powerful families. The line of the  _ Erlkönig’s _ consorts and his retinue, the line of faerie kings from Melusíne, there’s enough power in that to put a whole court in someone’s command--”

Mama sits up from her chair, almost knocking it over. “Get out of our house.”

“Lyra--” Papa starts, and the man in white protests, “It is only a theoretical--”

“Like  _ horcruxes  _ were a theoretical?” Mama spits out. “Like the  _ Half Blood Registry  _ was a  _ theoretical _ ?”

“Dolores Umbridge was an unsubtle fool,” says the man in white coldly. “Her vision was not broad  _ enough.  _ She was obsessed with blood purity, as if that was the only thing that mattered!”

“Says the man from a pure blood family,” Mama says through clenched teeth. 

The man in white sneers. “You are not one to judge that, Lyra Blanchard.”

“Enough,” says Papa flatly. “Orson, enough. You have upset my wife and disturbed my home. And for a theoretical concept that has no basis--”

“The little miracle,” says the man in white thoughtfully, as if Papa hasn’t spoken. “The child would do it, young, strong blood from your bloodlines--”

A blast of magic erupts from mama, like a gale on the coast. It sends the man in white out of his chair, whips him towards the door. Cullen at her side lets out a yelp of terror, the sound lost in the commotion, and she clutches at his neck for support. 

“ _ Get out!”  _ Her mama’s voice is a howl of rage.  _ “Get out of our house!” _

The man is white staggers backwards, fighting mama’s magic. “You are blind, both of you! Blind fools--”

Papa is at Mama’s side, his own wand up. There’s enough power there to shake the foundations of the house. The man in white is gone, the front door slams shut behind him. The silence that follows is immense and unending. 

She doesn’t dare to breathe. Cullen whines at her feet. 

That sound alerts Mama and Papa. They both turn to see her, crouching on the stairway, eyes enormous with fright. “Jyn.” Papa’s voice is strained. “Stardust. What are you doing up?”

“I--I heard voices--” she starts to say and her mother comes up the stairs, scooping her up immediately. 

“Come now, sweetheart,” her mama says as she carries her back to her room, the gentleness of her voice not hiding the way her arms tremble. “That’s not for you to worry about, alright? Let’s get you back to bed--”

She doesn’t see the man in white again. Instead she, Mama, Papa and Cullen leave the house next week, and move to the coast of England.

* * *

 

_ Now  _

Time had blurred. It was running and hiding and panting for air, for fear, trying to stay hidden, eating nothing, not even snow, even though Jyn thought she might die from starvation if she didn’t  _ eat  _ something soon. It was the hunters howling after her, the hounds baying, the faerie executioner Cutter laughing as he chased her, the iron he wore strapped to his arms and chest making his flesh ooze with sores. 

Jyn had a wand, a nail, and a knife and she used each one with a skill born of desperation. What little defensive spells she knew were put to the test here, constantly. The nail she learned to drive into hunting fae that came too close, leaving bodies scattered across the dark, backwards forest floor in her wake. The knife was made of stone, an ancient, terrible looking thing, and she used that strike sparks for a brief fire if she could.

Jyn knew about monsters. They studied them in Magical Creatures; she’d grown up hearing stories of the Lindworm and the kobold, the lorelai. Cassian told her about _ La Llorona _ , Bodhi knew endless stories about  _ djinn  _ and _ ifrit _ . But the creatures in this wood were things she’d never heard of, either huge and hulking and terrible, misshapen nightmares wrought of someone’s bad dream, or things so beautiful it felt  _ wrong, nothing  _ should be that beautiful, it went against nature, only to reveal rows and rows of sharp teeth. 

One hunter had gotten close enough for her to throw fire at him and he’d spat and howled, “The Lord and Lady are coming for  _ you,  _ little cousin! The Lord and Lady of the Winter Court, yes, they will  _ come  _ for you, they will  _ find  _ you, and you will set us free to run again and your blood will cool on the snow!” 

She’d driven a nail through his eyes and kept running. 

Now, now, now, hiding still, the Morrigan was back again with her, clearly bent on some kind of amusement. With a wide-mouthed, lazy smile, she slouched against a snow drift, watching Jyn shiver and try to keep away from her. “Darling, this  _ bores _ me,” the Morrigan drawled, teeth hard and iron, lips a cut in her face. “And you know what happens when I’m  _ bored. _ ”

She did know. And she didn’t want to be the one to make the Morrigan bored. At least she’d stopped offering Jyn apples, and laughing heartily whenever she refused to touch one. “I don’t know what you want.”

The Morrigan laughed, high and bright and harsh. “Little cousin, haven’t you  _ guessed?  _ I thought you were supposed to be  _ clever _ ! Now, dearest darlingest cousin, tell me something--why did that old doddering fool of a godfather shove you in here? Haven’t you thought about that at all?”

Between running for her life and dodging hunters, she hadn’t given it much thought. But now, with nowhere to go and the Morrigan looking to be  _ entertained,  _ Jyn tried to think. “He--Saw said that my parents didn’t know of the power in my blood; he kept talking of power and knowledge and true knowing--”

The Morrigan snickered viciously. “Stupid old fool went too far down the stone circle. He was in the court here last winter, same as you.” 

She grinned like a knife looking for places to cut at Jyn’s face. “Oh yes, little cousin, he was here. He thought he could  _ bind  _ us, make us bend to him! Kept trying to learn our ways and our secrets. Well, the Lord and Lady, stiff-necked as they are, they soon sorted  _ him  _ out _.   _ Made him welcome, offered him a gift and he took it with both hands, greedy grasping fool, just like all mortals. They let Bor Gullet loose on him, told him it could give him  _ all  _ the answers he wanted. And lo and behold, he has sent us  _ you!  _ A fine new bright spark of power, just waiting to be lit.” She laughed even harder watching Jyn’s expression. “Look at you, staring so moon-eyed! Don’t be  _ sorry  _ for him, little cousin. If he’d done what he was supposed to, he would’ve gutted you in the snow and spread your blood on the stones to let the court out. But…” The Morrigan shrugged. “He didn’t. And here you are.”

Jyn swallowed hard, painfully. This...was so much worse than she’d imagined. “Why--”

“Haven’t I killed you yet, let you run this far?” the Morrigan asked lazily and when Jyn didn’t reply, she smiled again, fondly, cruelly. “Kin calls to kin, does it not? You’re my descendant, far, far,  _ far  _ down the line. Besides,  _ I  _ am not bound by any circle or court. I come and go as I please, and the last few millennia have been so full of  _ war _ !  That last little fight your kind had, about the horcruxes--that kept me full and fat and happy for  _ years.  _ I don’t give a damn about courts as long as I’m fed. But the Lord and Lady--not much being on top if there’s no one stand on, hmm? They  _ need  _ mortals,” and the Morrigan sneered.  “They need their creativity, their spark, their  _ belief!  _ Oh, the court can dream up terrors and wonders beyond imagining--but they need  _ mortals  _ to make it real. They’re so funny that way, little cousin, that they believe in just what their  _ eyes  _ tell them.”

Jyn trembled in place, trying to keep still. The bones and stones braided in her hair clicked together softly and swung like pendulums. “Me-- _ I’m  _ mortal. Why do you keep saying I’m not?”

The Morrigan’s smile vanished like a candle being blown out. Jyn tensed her muscles, ready to start running again. “Haven’t you guessed yet, you stupid girl?” the Morrigan spat, all amusement gone into a sneer.  “You’re not  _ mortal,  _ little cousin. You are  _ fae touched. _ Fae blood runs in your veins. Why do you think you’re being hunted? The court demands a  _ sacrifice,  _ little cousin! You’re a lamb for slaughter, a neck for the block. If the hunters or Cutter catches you, they’ll bring you before the Lord and Lady and they’ll cut you open and bleed you dry.”

The Morrigan leaned forward and Jyn couldn’t move. “They’ll find you, sweet girl,” she crooned, like a dreadful parody of a lullaby. “They  _ will  _ find you. Unless you get to the circle first.”

* * *

 

Galen and Lyra awoke to the sound of howls, loud and desperate and furious. In the dimness of their room, they looked at each other.

“Cullen,” said Lyra urgently, already scrambling out of bed. “ _ Jyn.”  _

The winter air was a knife in the throat as they ran, the whole of the property outside their house singing like a taut piano wire. Cullen was loping back and forth outside, baying like a wolf denied of prey. There was a disturbed pattern on the ground in the snow around him. Lyra flung a spell sharply and the whole circle hummed to fierce, hungry life. Cullen paced besides them and howled again. “Galen,” Lyra called urgently and held out her hand. He seized it and they both sprang through, as Galen felt teeth digging into his coat from behind. 

The Ersos stumbled onto the other side of the circle, Cullen landing lightly in the snow besides them, nose already to the ground, gathering scent. “How--?” Galen started to say, but Lyra shook her head. “Uncanny,” she reminded him and pointed towards his hand. “Wand  _ up,  _ Galen.”

Two wands came up as they followed after Cullen, who already seemed to know where he was going. He stopped at the base of a mist-hidden hill, snuffling about the ground, and then raised his head again and howled, the sound a beacon. Lyra, besides Galen, gasped aloud as a figure stumbled out of the mist towards them, a slight, trembling figure that rattled strangely as it came--

Cullen sprang forward, panting and whining and pawing at the oncoming figure, a bewildered, frightened voice asking out of the darkness, “Cullen? Mama? Papa?”

“ _ Jyn! _ ” cried Lyra and they rushed forward, their daughter falling into their arms. 

Jyn, panic and adrenaline still singing in her veins, clawed frantically at her parents’ attempts to reassure her and themselves that it  _ was  _ her, her wand and knife still out. “We have to go, I have to get out of here, they’ll come for me, they’ll bring hunters, we have to go  _ now--” _

Her father’s voice reached through her terror. “Jyn, Jyn,  _ min kære _ , what are you talking about? Where have you been?”

Jyn stared wildly into her parents’ frightened faces, distantly felt the pull of the court fade, the circle stop humming. She dared a glance over her shoulder, toward the direction of the stones where she had stumbled from. 

The hill with its ring of stones was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is shorter than I originally intended, but hopefully, chapter seven will be up that much quicker. 
> 
> _min kære_ = Danish for "my darling"


	7. the third year: the spring term

_Dear Headmistress McGonagall,_

_We regret to inform you that our daughter Jyn has fallen ill and will be missing the first few weeks of the new term. She wishes to return to school as soon as she makes a full recovery. We will see that she keeps up with her school work if sent to her by Owl Post and she is able to complete it._

_Sincerely,_

_Lyra and Galen Erso_

Minerva McGonagall did not like the idea of any student, especially one as promising and as creatively inventive as Miss Erso, missing out on the beginning of the new term. But almost a month had gone by when the first letter had been sent, and when schoolwork or lessons had been sent to the Erso family, the owls had come back with nothing--no letter indicating Miss Erso’s return, or her schoolwork.

For lack of recourse, she sent for the group of students Miss Erso was always hanging about with; the young Hufflepuff Andor, the Ravenclaw Esso, Dameron the Quidditch captain and her housemate, young Rook.

All four boys faced her expectantly, clearly awaiting what she had to say. Minerva did not believe in beating around the bush in this case.

“Have any of you heard from Jyn Erso this past month?” she inquired.

Andor leaned forward a little further at the mention of her name, but the other three shook their heads. “No ma’am,” they all said and she sighed, pressing weary fingers to her eyes.

“I had hoped that you might have. She seems to have...fallen ill,” said Minerva reluctantly. Quite without her meaning to, her eyes lingered on Rook for a moment before she resumed her usual briskness. “Her parents informed me that she wishes to return to school as soon as she’s recovered, which, knowing Miss Erso, will be sooner than perhaps advisable. To that end, I’m hoping that you four as her friends will help keep an eye on her.”

Kes nodded, but Bodhi and Cassian exchanged glances. They didn’t need to be _told_ to look after Jyn, but the reminder was deeply suspicious.

“Miss Bey has already agreed to send notes from the standard curricula, but I understand at least two of you share electives with Miss Erso. Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures, I believe?” Kay and Cassian nodded. “Her professors will have notes waiting for you to pick up from them. That will be all, gentlemen.”

The boys said thank you and filed out.  “What could she have _possibly_ done," said Kay, as they left, as if there was no limit to Jyn’s capacity for chaos. Cassian, thinking about how McGonagall looked at Bodhi, said nothing.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Bodhi asked Cassian quietly. “She hasn’t answered any of our letters.”  Bodhi had sent the first letter, once he’d confirmed that Jyn hadn’t somehow avoided them all and gone straight to Gryffindor Tower. Or more likely, avoided them all and escalated hostilities with the Ravenclaws.

“Jyn’s always been the worst at answering letters,” Cassian said, but the unease lingered. Jyn could be thoughtless and distracted sometimes, sure, but this sudden silence was out of character. And if her parents were also refusing contact with the school for some reason…

“She probably got the flu or something,” said Cassian, but the words didn’t sit right on his tongue. Jyn was the probably the scrappiest person he’d ever known. The idea that she’d succumb to a mere illness was unlikely. “She’ll back here any day now. You’ll see.” He couldn’t imagine it otherwise.

* * *

 

 _Any day now_ turned out to be almost two weeks later, the beginning of February. Cassian walked into DADA and there she was, in a corner, speaking to Baze and Chirrut. Well, not talking. Listening to whatever they had to say.

He pushed forward, with no plan or intent beyond simply _reaching_ her, but Shara Bey, Jyn’s housemate stepped into his way and then stepped with him when he tried to move around her. He paused just long enough to start to tell Shara to move, which was long enough for her to interrupt him. “If you want her to be happy to see you, you’ll take a slower approach, Andor.”

Slow in relation to Jyn was absurd, and Cassian almost told her so. But he looked more closely into Shara’s face, her concern, the way she was biting her lower lip in worry, the deep crease between her eyebrows. So he went past her more slowly, and then caught his first sight of Jyn. Her hair was… _cropped,_ almost to her ears. Some part of his brain thought looking at her, _martyr, saint, Joan of Arc in battle._ He’d never seen so much of her neck exposed at once, a long, slim stem. Her cheekbones looked razor sharp, her eyes enormous in her strangely, worringly thin face. She looked...diminished. Hollowed out. Fragile. Never had any of these words applied to Jyn and it frightened Cassian immensely.

She seemed to notice him approaching before she realized _who_ was approaching. Her feet shifted restlessly; her body moved until the wall was at her back. For anyone who spent enough time with Jyn, they would recognize one of her favorite brawling tactics.   While he watched, her eyes locked first on his hands, then on the space behind him, and then, finally, on his face.

Jyn’s eyes were... it was worse than Bodhi had been, who simply didn’t _see_ anyone when he was in the grip of whatever it was Saw’s spell left behind. But Jyn was looking at him like she was seeing someone she had long thought dead. As if she can't trust what her eyes were presenting to her. As if she expected him to vanish.

Cassian didn’t realize he had stopped moving, stopped _breathing_ until she lowered her eyes to the bare flagstones of the floor.

"Jyn?" He couldn’t help talking to her like _she_ might be the ghost. "Jyn, it's me.”

“I know that,” she snapped at him. “I didn’t forget."

He didn’t understand that. The break wasn’t that long. That she'd forgotten him hadn't been his concern. (That'd she thought she was seeing someone else had been.)

Lost for words, Cassian simply stared at her, his hands swinging uselessly at his sides. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to _say?_ If she'd been on the train, like she should have been, he would have said something about her hair and maybe tried to ruffle it without it  seeming like a big deal. If she wasn’t so angry and twitchy already he would pull her out of the corner and make her come stand with the rest of the class. Instead he stood where he was--too far from her --and searched for _something t_ o say. "Do...do you want me to go?"

"No," Jyn burst out, hard and fast.

“Oh...okay," Cassian said warily. “What do you want then?"

Jyn stared at him, something he did not understand struggling to make itself known in her face.

Chirrut clapped him on the shoulder, breaking the spell that’d made it seem as if he and Jyn were the only ones in the room, and went to call class to order. Baze looked them both over with a neutral expression before doing the same. And Jyn...didn’t move or relax, certainly didn’t meet his eyes again.

* * *

 

Jyn hadn’t relaxed since the night her parents had brought her back in from the cold of the midwinter night.

Everything about her had been on constant edge, looking for threats, jumping at sounds. They’d done all they could to convince her that she’d only been missing an hour at most, but her body said that was a lie. That days, weeks even, had passed before she’d fought her way free.

It was a blur in her memory now, defined only by moments of horror: the bones and stones the Morrigan had braided into her hair, clicking together during the trip back to their house, pulling at her scalp and battering her shoulders. Begging her mother to get rid of them. Lyra having had no choice but to cut them out, and then trim the rest of Jyn’s hair to match. (Tears on her mother’s face, strain on her father’s, her own frozen rejection of this part of herself that she’d never spent any time considering before.) Cullen at her side, practically in her lap as her mother smashed the bones into dust, then and there, and buried the rocks under the rosemary bushes in the garden, scattering the bone dust over running water, to get rid of them fully. Huddling under the blankets of her bed unable to get warm, with Cullen on the bed next to her and whining as she shivered and shook. Being unable to get warm no matter how much tea she drank or blankets she was under.

Cassian looked as lost as she felt. He walked--edged--closer, but not close enough for her to touch, if she dared, before swerving aside. He boosted himself into one of the narrow window ledges, which was... good. Close enough for comfort, not so close that he sent her nerves clamouring with a need she couldn’t identify.

“Are you...are you feeling better?” he asked uncertianly. “Headmistress told us you were sick, when you weren’t here.”

Jyn’s mouth tightened. "I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He didn’t press and she didn’t volunteer any more information, but as the class picked up where it left off, she inched a little closer. Standing so close to Cassian was like being anchored; Jyn wanted to plaster herself against him and never let go; she wanted to take off running until this strange new wanting was burned out of her skin.

She didn’t intentionally get closer. She just couldn’t get comfortable. She was so tired, but the wall was too cold for comfort. Made her too cold. Even now she was bundled in sweater and scarf under her uniform robes. In the distance Chirrut began the lesson, and she listened with only half an ear, not really meaning to, but unable to stop. She was as on edge here as she was...there. Back home. She didn’t mean to keep one eye on her surroundings and one on Cassian. She didn’t mean to move close enough, inch by inch, for her hip to bump into his knee where it jutted out from the wall.

They both froze. Jyn could almost taste the panic coming off him, which was something new and horrible and _wrong_ about her一

Cassian's knee pressed back against her, deliberately. Gently. When she glanced over his eyes were focused on Baze and Chirrut, but his knee bumped her again.

Up until now, the concept of electricity had been beyond Jyn. Now she understood it, a single point of connection between her and Cassian, and he wasn’t running away. He wasn’t shying away from her and...everything else.

The air seemed thick with feeling, and she couldn’t tell the difference between his or hers, but oddly it seemed to hold her in place, here, beside him. She had no idea what the lesson was on by the end of class. And it didn’t actually matter. This is the best she’d felt since Mama and Papa left her in Hogsmeade with Professor Longbottom. Logically she knew that was only a few hours ago, but her internal clock still felt broken. She wished that this moment would be the one that seemed to last forever.

* * *

 

Cassian was a little afraid to breathe, for it seemed any sudden movement would send Jyn skittering away like a feral cat. He knew that Shara was going to come collect her though. “I could walk you and Shara to your next class," he offered, when it was apparent that Jyn might very well stand here for the rest of the day if not prompted.

Jyn shifted back and forth, as if she needed to think about it. “...Okay. If you want.”

 _Of course I want_ , Cassian thought, and didn’t understand why Jyn flinched, as if she heard it--

Shara and Jyn had charms next, which would definitely make him late to potions, but he didn’t care. He even had a ready excuse if Professor Flitwick scolded him; the Headmistress _told_ him to look out for Jyn. He jumped down from the window, trying not to invade too far into her personal space, and walked her to go collect their shoes. He couldn’t help but notice that Jyn walked differently.

He wouldn’t be able to explain it, and wouldn’t _want_ to explain it, except he knew how to walk at Jyn’s side. How to match her stride and make room for her walk there besides him. Now… She wasn’t walking like she had places to be and didn’t mind going through people to get there. As they moved out into the corridor, behind the majority of the class, he tried to watch her without her catching him.

She was careful to maintain a space between her and everyone else, staying a step behind Cassian and Shara, allowing them to be the barrier between her and the rest of the student-clogged hallway. Kept her head and down and watched her feet and avoided catching anyone's eye. They reach the charms corridor where the third year Gryffindors and Slytherins were peeling off for their class. Cassian slowed down and hiked his pack further up on his shoulder.

“See you at lunch, Jyn?" He’d follow her to class to make she sure made it, but…

She looked at him once, and then turned away. Already half gone. “Maybe.”

Lunch came and went, but Jyn didn’t. No one noticed her leave or could guess where she went, not Kay, Shara or Bodhi.

He didn’t ask Shara how she could have lost Jyn. Though he definitely _felt_ like it. Just shoved a couple of apples into his bag and headed to Care of Magical Creatures. If Jyn went anywhere, she’d just as likely head outside as she would to her dorm. He didn’t _think_ she’d go to the fringes of the Forbidden Forest, like Solo used to dare her to, but in this strange, new, altered state of Jyn, he didn’t know what to expect.

By the time he reached Hagrid’s hut, he could hear the hippogriffs screaming, harsh and furious. He took the small hill between him and the clearing at a jog, just so he could make sure it wasn’t trouble.

The whole herd of hippogriffs was surging about wildly, rearing up on their horse legs and pawing the air with those huge, wickedly sharp talons.. He could see Jyn, tiny in the midst of the herd, kept trying to back her way out of the paddock and avoid the talons lashing out at her from what seemed like every side.

“Quiet!” Jyn snapped, fury and fear in her voice. “Stop that!”

“Erso!” Hagrid’s bellow could probably be heard across half the grounds. The hippogriffs reacted with more screaming and rearing, and Hagrid’s massive form pulled Jyn’s insignificant one off her feet and hauled her away from the milling herd. “What’s the matter with you, lass?” scolded Hagrid. “You know that ain’t no way to talk to the ‘griffs!"

“I didn’t _do_ anything!” The frustration in her voice was painful to hear. “I was just bowing at them like we’re supposed to and they all started screaming--” He must have made some sound as he hurried over because she saw him coming and stopped, shrinking back from him again.

“Professor. Jyn,” Cassian greeted them, as if nothing was happening, as if the screaming herd of hippogriffs was completely normal.  

“Andor.” Hagrid sounded relieved. “Take Erso here for a walk while the herd settles down.”

Cassian nodded. Under normal circumstances he would have grabbed at her robes and towed her after him, prepared to give yet _another_ lecture on caution and actually thinking about her actions. But he couldn’t bring himself to reach for her when she seemed so scared. He walked past her, just close enough that his elbow brushed against hers. Hoping that she’d follow, but listening for the crunch of pebbles underfoot to confirm it.

When they were a safe distance away, Cassian stopped and turned to Jyn, watching her face carefully. “What happened?”

“I don't _know_ ,” Jyn spat out. “I barely stepped inside the pen before they all started running around and screaming at me.”

Cassian had always suspected that Jyn took Care of Magical creatures mainly because it got her outside. She’d never complained about how much time they have to spend inside the castle for school, but every time she talked about being home...it was all forests and beaches and setting out with her dog for the afternoon. He didn’t believe she was taking the class because she had some inner consuming desire to work with magical beasts in the future.

“ _Why_ were you in the paddock?” he asked quietly, not looking at her but down towards where he could still see those oddly blended forms.

Jyn’s cheeks reddened. “I _thought_ I would try the bowing thing like Hagrid suggested but they just reacted like that and started screaming and none of them would get near me--” she stopped, biting her lip and not meeting his eye.

“Why now?” Cassian asked, trying not to sound as frustrated as he felt. Why couldn’t she let him _help_ her? “Class doesn’t even start for another fifteen minutes. Why didn’t…?” He stopped himself from asking why she didn't come to lunch. It sounds too much like...expectation. Hovering. He kicked idly at a tuft of grass in front of him while trying not to sigh, while trying to find whatever the rights words were supposed to be. “You’ve only been back for less than a day.” _Couldn’t you have waited to cause trouble? Do you really not miss us already? Didn’t you miss_ me?

Jyn couldn’t help but twitch as she fought down the urge to cover her ears, to cower. Cassian's mouth wasn’t moving but she could _hear_ everything he wasn’t saying. This shouldn’t be happening, couldn’t be, but she was nearly scared enough to run despite that.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was very small.

He heard the shift in her tone and his heart sank. He definitely hadn’t come all this way to yell at her. (He _had_ come all this way because he’d thought she’d be here. Alone.)

Out of any other ideas, he let the subject drop and rummaged around in his bag, pulling out one of the two apples that had fallen to the bottom of it. “Here. You missed lunch.”

Jyn stared at the apple like he was handing her giant spider, or a dead rat.  

“Jyn? Are you okay?” There was something terrible lurking in Jyn's eyes. Something dark and glittering and immense. Firelight through obsidian, but that was wrong, because Jyn’s eyes had always been green and alive --

“I’m--I’m not hungry.”

She was staring at the apple, not at him. Which--he hoped--meant the problem was the food, not the fact that he, Cassian, was the one offering it to her.

Kay would never let him live it down in a thousand years if he found out about this, but Cassian took a big bite out of the apple on impulse, then offered it again, pretending not to notice that this has gotten more… meaningful, than he’d really meant it to get.

Jyn looked at the bite in the apple and then at him. Then only after seeing the bite did she accept and take one of her own.

Cassian was fifteen now, growing taller by the day and starting to worry about the barest edges of a beard on his jaw. The sight of Jyn’s lips and teeth did very strange things to him. Things he would prefer not to think about, at all.  He wiped his hand on his pants and huddled further into his cloak. The weather was damp and chill and the distraction it caused was welcome. Normally he’d ask what Jyn did over her break, but right now that seemed like stepping into a minefield. So he stood by in silence while Jyn devoured the apple he gave her and watched their classmates start to trickle down from the castle.

"Are you going back?”

Jyn polished off the rest of the apple, let the core fall to the ground. “Yeah. Shara has my notes.”

I _have your notes. Why don’t you ask_ me _?_ “Do you want me to come with you?" _Ask me ask me ask me--_

“... No.”

His face fell, despite his best efforts to hide it. “Okay then.”

Neither of them moved.

“Am I supposed to pretend nothing happened to you?” he asked, without meaning to, but the question was out.  He didn’t know how many more of these awkward silences he could take while they both stared in opposite directions. “Or can we both admit that _something_ happened over break and just agree that I’m not going to make you talk about it?”

Jyn flinched. No one asked her direct questions anymore, not even her parents, after the first few had produced nothing but silence and panicked breathing. She'd gotten so used to the sideways talking it was a almost a shock to hear anything so blunt and straightforward. “Nothing happened.” Nothing she could explain.

Cassian ran his gloved hands over his head and muttered under his breath, words she didn’t know, but then, his tone got their meaning across just fine. “ _Mierda,_ ” said he finally,  rudely. “ _Something_ did. You don’t have to tell me if you don't want to. But I’m not _stupid,_ Jyn. We don't have to talk about it. We don’t. But you’re my best friend, and…” He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t hurt because she was.

She went silent for so long he thought he’d lost her altogether.  “I can’t talk about it." Her voice seemed very small. “I don’t _want_ to talk about it.”

He let out a long, shaky sigh. If she could compromise, if she could admit that something happened even if she wouldn’t tell him, maybe they would make it through this. "No problem. Want another apple? I brought two.”

She shook her head slowly and he ground his teeth. Didn’t tell her that she's never going to get taller if she didn’t eat.

“Want a hug?” he offered next, because that was still...okay. They were still best friends, and she was sad and alone and he had given her one before. And he wanted _so_ much. But mostly wanted her to be able to rely on him.

The pause was longer this time, as if she actually considered it. But she eventually shook her head again. He tried not to take it personally.

“Want to skip class and go skip stones on the lake?” This offer made her go paler than any of the rest and Cassian would’ve immediately take it back if he could.

“Want me to tell Hagrid that you're still under the weather and went up to the castle?”

Jyn felt the waves of frustration thrumming out from Cassian, along with so much actual, genuine concern that she could barely breathe around it. He was trying so hard to figure out what ways she’d allow him to help her. It was painful, like getting into a too-hot bath after being outside in the cold was painful. If he touched her, she might break. If she touched him, that might be the end of whatever it was that was between them before it even began.  

Jyn wrapped her arms around herself and let herself say one honest thing, before she couldn’t bear any more: “I missed you.”   _I think you were the thing that kept me alive._

She really didn’t know how she managed to find the right thing to say, but Cassian relaxed. “I missed you too.”  Jyn heard the unspoken words follow the sentence. _I would have come to you if you hadn’t come back._ It made her flush with longing and heat and discomfort.

He couldn’t say that out loud to her, even if it was true. Maybe especially not because it was true. So he settled on, “School's not the same without you here.”

He didn’t know if it was the cold or his words that make her shiver, but he sighed and gave up. At least on having a conversation about whatever was wrong. “Are you cold? Come on, let’s go back inside.”

* * *

 

Dinner was not as much as a success as Cassian might’ve hoped. Jyn’s shorn hair caused a bit of stir amongst their tablemates, as well as her unexpected absence and reappearance. People would stop by and try to _talk_ to her (“Why’d you cut your hair? Why were you gone for so long? Did someone die?”) and Jyn’s shoulders would hunch and her voice would get lower and lower. She wasn’t eating either, he noted anxiously, she’d just push food around her plate and poke uninterestedly at it.

A few professors stopped by and tried to talk to her, but Jyn would withdraw further, mumbling answers. Professor Malbus and Professor Îmwe both gave Cassian a _look,_ one that said, _well, what are we going to do about this_ ? As if he was supposed to _know._ But they left Jyn alone to not eat her food in relative peace.

Bodhi came over too, eager and hopeful to see Jyn again, only skid to a halt upon the sight of her, dismay and alarm and worry all over his face. “Jyn? Are you--what happened to your hair?”

Jyn softened at the sight of him but she shrugged in response. “Got tired of having it long.”

Bodhi set down his plate and sat down across her, glancing at Cassian, very clearly trying not to ask. “Um...were you sick, Jyn? When you weren’t on the train, we got worried.”

Jyn stared at her plate, the food almost untouched. “...no.”

“You... _weren’t_ sick?” Bodhi said, face creased.

“No, I wasn’t sick,” Jyn said, with more of an edge to her voice than Cassian had heard before. “Bodhi, just leave it, okay?”

She hadn’t _exactly_ snapped at him, but...there was something in her voice that made Bodhi shrink backwards into his sear, hands twitching on his utensils. He couldn’t seem to meet Jyn’s eye either. “Jyn,” Cassian started and stopped, because it was barely her first day back and she was already snapping at _Bodhi,_ and Jyn hunched her shoulders again like a kicked dog, and muttered something approximating an apology.

Kay leaned over the table. “If you weren’t sick and there were no issues with your family, then what _were_ your reasons for missing half the term?”

“None of your business,” Jyn growled, and unless Cassian was entirely going crazy, her teeth seemed somewhat... _pointed._

Kay scowled. “If these non-answers are meant to keep us off the topic of your unexplained absence--”

“Kay,” Cassian said, unable to watch Jyn’s lips peel back from her teeth, “Let it go. Please.”

Kay shut his mouth and glowered. Jyn stared at her plate. Bodhi bit his lip and looked pleadingly at Cassian: _do something._

Cassian took a mouthful of food, not even really tasting it. “Bodhi,” he said, once he swallowed it, “Did Kes let you back on the team?”

“Huh?” Bodhi jumped a bit, and then gratefully sprang on the topic. “Well, I’m helping Luke. Skywalker, I mean. He’s still pretty new at it, but he’s showing a lot of progress--”

Cassian watched Jyn listen to Bodhi. The new hardness to her face eased, her shoulders went down. She looked like the Jyn he remembered. From before winter break.

Which of course, raised the question: what the hell had happened?   

* * *

 

The days went by. Jyn moved through her classes and hallways like a ghost, one that blended in with the shadows. Cassian sometimes had to be looking right at her to realize she was even there. It was if his eye...skipped over her. His brain told him, _not right, not right, don’t look,_ but it was _Jyn._ What was not right? What had gone wrong?

Her magic was behaving strangely too, he noticed, in classes. Her transfiguration charms were either backfiring, or producing something completely different. The spoon Professor Kenobi wanted them to transform into a goblet turned into a huge, massive candelabra, something that looked like a metalsmith’s nightmare. The more Jyn tried to change it back, the more sprawling and grotesque it became. The whispers and stares from the rest of the class didn’t help. It only made her more agitated.

Their usual study group was now getting more and more strained. Bodhi’s worry and Kay’s obvious exasperation with Jyn’s refusal to _talk_ to them made Jyn show up less and less. She was barely coming to meals now.

Then there was the incident at the lake.

Baze and Chirrut took a group of third and fourth years--Jyn and Cassian’s age bracket--down to the lake, to discuss some of the culture of the merfolk that lived there. Chirrut explained that in China, most merfolk were more helpful to humans than their European counterparts, even helping divers swim for pearls--for a fair price, of course. Chirrut led the group of students down the edges of the lake, the giant squid hiding in reeds taking off the moment they approached---which was odd, it was normally quite friendly. Cassian glanced over at Jyn and frowned, because she was backing away from the lake and they hadn’t even started the lesson yet.

Jyn was on edge. True, merfolk were not... _fae,_ in a way she recognized, but she’d grown up on stories of the Lorelai. Jyn hadn’t been near the lake in ages. The merfolk didn’t speak the same dialect of Mermish that she remembered from childhood and they laughed at her when she tried to talk with them. Apparently she spoke Mermish with a strong Danish accent.

Now, she stayed far away from the edge, eyeing the water warily. The merfolk were beginning to float near the surface, their greenish hair drifting like seaweed. Some of the boys were trying to see under the hair of the mermaids, the idiots.

Chirrut began the lesson as he always does, and Jyn _was_ trying to pay attention, but the merfolk were close enough now to the surface to be heard, and she could catch fragments of a strange, bubbling language, with harsh accents.

Cassian tried to stick close to her. His interest in merfolk was minimal at best. (Okay, he was a _little_ curious. But when Jyn was left on the fringes of any group she could be liable to disappear.) He was the first one to notice the frown on Jyn's face. No, not a frown. Something more than a frown.

It was, in fact, a look of absolute murder.

The sun was out, pale, meager, almost the end of winter light. No clouds to speak of. Except... It was like suddenly wearing sunglasses. Everything became dimmer somehow.

Jyn stalked to the edge of the lake, students getting out of her way as if by instinct. Both Baze and Chirrut both paused their lecture and look at her in surprise. Jyn stormed into the shallow edges of the water, sending water splashing about. The merfolk surged a little backwards, surprised by this young two-legger’s (very foolish) display of bravado.

“You ARSEHOLES,” she howled at them in English, before saying something again in a language Cassian had never heard before, something harsh and raw and screeching. The merfolk in the lake recoiled back further, suddenly displaying saw-edged teeth.

“Erso!” Professor Malbus thundered.  

She glanced at Baze, momentarily distracted, but it didn’t last. Her attention returned to the lake. She switched over back to Mermish. She shouldn't remember so much of a language she hadn’t used for years, but it flooded through her without pause.

“I WILL DRAIN THIS LAKE DRY IF YOU EAT ANYONE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME,” she shrieked, her classmates backing away even further from the lake and from _her._ She didn’t notice. She was too scared, and too furious, for the alarm and fear on their faces to register.

She had heard the mermaids talking. About which student they’d eat if they could. Which student looked the most appetizing. It didn’t occur to her that it could be a hypothetical observation, that the merfolk weren’t about to risk being thrown out by the head of Hogwarts. She’d been suddenly all too aware that there are others who...who _would_ do it, without even thinking about it, accepting it as their due.

“KEEP YOUR TEETH AWAY FROM US, DO YOU UNDERSTAND,” she screamed, the merfolk going further and further back into the lake, even as she followed them further and further, heedless of any danger. Their beautiful, inhuman faces were too much like the ones that haunted her nightmares.

Chirrut’s staff came down in front of her, the air turning to something like glass in its wake. Jyn shoved against it, still shouting, still terrified, but unable to get any further into the lake.

"Little sister.”  Chirrut's voice was immensely calm, and it cut through her terror and rage. “Calm yourself.”

She couldn’t calm down. She was shaking all over. "They were going to--"

“Go to Baze, little sister,” Chirrut tells her, herding her back to the shallower edges. “I will handle this.”

“You can't let them. You can’t.” But then Baze’s hand wrapped around most of her upper arm, and she didn’t resist. She stumbled some, suddenly clumsy and uncoordinated, but she let him pull her away from the water.

“I will not, little sister.” Chirrut was still very calm. “I give you my word.”

Jyn relaxed then, letting Baze pull her back to the shallows, to the shore. She could trust Chirrut. He didn’t lie.

Baze towed her back to the where the rest of her class was before essentially planting her next to Cassian and saying sternly, “Stay. _Here,”_  and going back to Chirrut, launching into an intense, quick discussion in Cantonese.

The rest of the students started whispering. Loudly. Speculatively. Jyn realized what she just did. How every single student is staring at her like she was...she was...

She really did not want to draw any comparisons. She started to breathing heavily, trying not to panic.

Cassian reached out, tried to touch her arm, but Jyn jerked away before he could get halfway there. Cassian drew back, stung and trying not to show it, as the whispers increased in volume.

Chirrut brought his staff down on the stones, the sound ringing out much more loudly than it should, drawing their attention away from Jyn. “The merfolk have withdrawn for today. We will continue the lesson another time,” said Chirrut firmly, as Jyn tried to shrink into herself. “Professor Malbus, please escort the students back to the castle. Miss Erso, if you would please remain here--Jyn?”

She was gone. Cassian didn’t understand it, she’d been _right there,_ a few seconds ago--

Chirrut paused, shook his head. “Escort the students back, please,” he said to Baze. “I will speak to the merfolk.”  

Baze nodded grimly, before beginning to herd the students back up the path to the castle, Cassian right in the middle of them.

“Did you see her--” “It got so dark--” “What she was saying--” “What was she _talking_ about--”

Cassian gritted his teeth. Oh, he was going to have _words_ with Jyn when he saw her again.

“Where did she _go?_ ” seemed to be the main question. No one had seen her leave. It was like she’d vanished--

 _You go to a_ magic school, Cassian told himself. _You’re_ supposed _to learn how to disappear._ But not like that, though.

Since coming to Hogwarts, Cassian had learned a few important things. How to talk to ghosts, how to drive off the poltergeist Peeves, or navigating the moving stairways. And how _incredibly_ fast gossip could spread.

It was all anyone could talk about when it came time for dinner, Erso’s strange outburst. The reaction of the mermaids. Her abrupt disappearance. Even the professors were discussing it in low voices, though they all stopped and looked sternly at any students within earshot.

Cassian didn’t see Jyn until she slunk into the Great Hall, shoulders hunched as if she was warding off a blow, the stares from students around her. She joined their table without speaking, and picked disinterestedly at the food that immediately appeared on her plate.    

Unable to let it go at that, Cassian leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. “Did you talk to Chirrut, after class?”

Jyn pushed some more potatoes around. “No.”

“But you will, soon?” Cassian pressed, even as Bodhi tried to get his attention on the other side of the table.

Kay was no longer able to keep silent. “Since when do you speak Mermish?” he demanded, as if offended by the idea of it. More like the idea of Jyn not _telling_ them things.

“Papa taught me,” Jyn whispered. She was hunching further into herself, a tremor working through her shoulders. As if she was too cold, even in the warmth of the Great Hall. “Why are you mad?” Asking the question was akin to volunteering to walk on nails and Cassian couldn’t distract Kay from his frustration.

“What is WRONG with you?” Kay demanded, clearly fed up. “Why are you _acting_ like this?”

“Sorry if I’m bothering you,” Jyn snapped, with some of her former asperity as she left the table without having taken a single bite of food.

“Well, that sure helped,” said Bodhi despondently, as the three boys watched Jyn’s departing back.

“She’s being irrational,” Kay replied waspishly, stabbing the vegetables on his plate. “Everyone here _knows_ she’s been irrational and secretive and...and... _unreasonable_ since she got back! But no one wants to _talk_ about it.”

“Okay, sure,” said Bodhi, “she’s upset. She’s not talking to us. But don’t you think demanding what’s wrong with her is going to _help_?”

“If she _talked_ to us, we could help,” Kay said, clearly not about to back down his stance.

Bodhi made an inarticulate, frustrated noise, yanking at his hair before turning to Cassian. “Help me out here, won’t you?”

Kay turned expectantly to Cassian, a self-righteous scowl still on his face.

Cassian swallowed his mouth of rice, washing it down with pomegranate juice (he never really developed a taste for pumpkin). “If Jyn doesn’t want to talk about...whatever it is,” he said slowly, under the stares of his two friends, “then trying to force her won’t work. She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”

“Oh? And when will that be?” Kay asked acerbically.

Neither Cassian or Bodhi had any answers.    

* * *

 

The weeks went by. There were no more strange outbursts from Jyn during class, but no one who knew her well could deny Jyn was...changed. Deeply so.

Shara Bey, who shared a dormitory with Jyn, reported that Jyn would wake up in the night with screaming nightmares, thrashing about in bed and sending hexes out wildly. Jyn made a visit to Professor Organa for a potion for dreamless sleep and spent the next week wandering around the halls feeling like warmed over death. Bodhi even snuck into her dorm a few times, trying to keep her company so she could sleep, like she did for him, but it wasn’t helping. “Talk to me," Bodhi told her, trying to touch her hands, “Let me help you.”

Jyn recoiled and shoved herself back into the depths of her bed. “You can’t help me.”

 _I don’t_ want _you to help me_ , is the unspoken part of the sentence. Despite the look of bewildered hurt on Bodhi’s face, Jyn couldn’t bring herself to open to him, to explain. She couldn’t drag them into this, especially Bodhi, who was just starting to recover, she shouldn’t draw attention to him, and she couldn’t reveal how...alien...she felt. Inhuman in her own skin.

The world was starting to become scarily indistinct. It was beginning to reach the point where she couldn’t think clearly. It was narrowed down to _threat_ or _danger,_ from every corner.

Bodhi took it to Cassian, who was beginning to feel more and more ill at ease with the growing sharpness of Jyn's features--and her teeth.  But Cassian had no more luck than Bodhi did, trying to get her to talk to him, or even do something as simple as sit down and eat a full meal, as opposed to pushing food around her plate. Kay was the one who put a stop to it. He didn’t bother asking her any questions, just used his greater height and reach to herd her to where he wanted her to go and didn’t let her stand up from the table until she ate something. Jyn would snarl and curse at him, but doesn't try to _actually_ curse him.

She still didn’t eat much at dinner. A dinner roll and half a glass of milk. But Bodhi managed to coax her down to breakfast some morning and get her to eat a hard-boiled egg and a slice of toast. Bit by bit, they coaxed, coerced and bullied her into eating more at mealtimes.

Sleep followed or rather, tried to. One day she would eat something at all three meals and then Bodhi would usually be able to steer her in the direction of the library. And instead of studying she stared blankly at her open book and the words started swimming in front of her eyes.

Their study group had become more and more disorganized in her absence. Jyn was unable to concentrate anymore. All of her papers and books are scattered everywhere as Bodhi, Cassian and Kay tried to work around her. Lulled by their low voices, Jyn closed her eyes, just for a moment, to try to gather some small measure of concentration…

The Morrigan’s wide, sly, wicked smile filled her head.

She pushed away from the table and walked away without a word, leaving her things behind. Or tried to. Cassian heads her off, down an aisle instead of towards the door. “Jyn," he said in protest, hands held out as if to stop her or catch at her own, "where are you going?”

“Go away,”Jyn said fiercely, about to barrel past him if she had to.

 _“Jyn.”_ Cassian said her name with such feeling that she paused, meeting his eyes directly for perhaps the first time since winter break.

“What,” she snapped, but there was something frightened and volatile thrashing beneath her skin, an eerie gleam to her eyes. She looked like a creature cornered.

He held his hands out to her, showing her that they were empty. That he was unarmed. “Please. Trust me.”

He could see Jyn wavering, but she couldn’t maintain eye contact with him. “I _do_ trust you," she said, because this was still the only true thing left, “but you--you can't help me."

“I _can’t_ help you or you don’t _want_ me to help you?” Cassian said and when she didn’t respond, he added, “I watch your back, yeah?” The two of them have gotten into and out of a lot of fights together, enough that they fell into a routine. He knew her rhythms as well as she knows his own. “ _Let_ me watch your back," he said, as close to pleading as he has ever come with her.

Her hands fist and clenched at her sides, but she didn’t run from her. As though she were a feral cat that he might spook if he moved too suddenly, Cassian touched her shoulder with the very tips of his fingers. Jyn _growled_ at him--honest to god growled - but didn’t shake him off. “Talk to me,” he said softly, “Tell me what you need.”

Jyn wanted to bite him, snarl, fall into his arms and sob. She couldn’t _tell_ him what she need when she didn’t even _know._

“I can’t sleep,” she finally hissed at him, keeping her voice as low as she can. “I can’t sleep because I have nightmares and the potions don't help and I can't concentrate because I feel like crawling out of my skin一” She couldn’t tell him why. He would flee from her like an animal before a wildfire.

“Come here,” he urged softly, his fingers slipping down to her elbow. Jyn did pull away at that, a jerky motion paired with the level gaze that was usually trained on people she’s about to fight.

Cassian held his empty hands up again, reminding her that he wasn’t a threat. “What is it you think I'm going to do?” Cassian asked. “I’m not going to leave you, Jyn.”

Everything in Jyn froze over, went dark. Saw said that. Saw said that and abandoned her.

Cassian could see it, the moment he lost her. He cursed under his breath as she was there one minute and then gone the next. The curses continued as he went back to the table, shoved her things in the bag she left behind, and then packed up his own things. "Bodhi? Is the guest password for your common room still the same?"

“Uh…” Bodhi shifted his things around nervously, as Kay narrowed his eyes without speaking at Cassian. Cassian ignored Kay and focused on Bodhi.

“Oracle," Bodhi said finally, worriedly. "Be polite to the Fat Lady.”

Cassian allowed for the barest of nods before heading straight to Gryffindor tower, seething inwardly. He stalked up the stairs, and further up the stairs, and stopped outside the portrait that guards the Gryffindor common room. "Bodhi told me that the visitor’s password changed to oracle."

The Fat Lady looked down her painted nose at him, disapproving. “In _my_ day, students stayed in their _assigned_ dorms.”

Cassian breathed out slowly, reminding himself to use an even tone. “I think my friend needs help."

The Fat Lady sniffed at him, but peeled away. “I’ve heard _that_ one before, too.”

Technically, he wasn’t allowed to go to the girl's dorm unless accompanied by a teacher or head boy or girl, or prefect. But everyone knew Cassian was in the Gryffindor tower as much as Jyn usually was, so no one questioned his determined stride towards the girls’ dormitory.

“Hey, Andor.” Shara stopped him on the stairs up to Jyn’s room. “If you're looking for Erso, she’s not here.”

Cassian bit down on the urge to swear again. “Do you know where she went?"

Shara scowled worriedly at him, before saying reluctantly, “No, but lately she’s been coming in tracking dirt all over the place, so you might check the grounds. Go and bring her back, okay?”

“ _Well_ then,” said the Fat Lady crossly as Cassian left the tower, angrier than ever at Jyn.

Cassian stopped in a side hall, pulled out of one of Jyn’s spare books. He pointed his wand at it. “ _¿Donde esta ella? Encuéntrala,_ ” he said quietly, and silver smoke spilled from the book, heading out the hall, streaking towards the outdoors.

Cassian followed the smoke out the castle, down the grounds, past Hagrid’s hut...and right into the fringes of the Forbidden Forest. Exactly where students were, in fact, _forbidden_ to go.   

Now Cassian really did swear aloud. He was going to kill her. No, he was going to lock her in the tower room, yell at her for three days straight, make her eat some soup, and _then_ kill her. He stormed past the forest edge, not even paying attention to the dying light.

The smoke wound around trees, fallen logs, strange, winding paths, over rocks. He knew Jyn in this mood一she was trying to put something behind her by forging the most difficult path possible. He muttered and swore and shouted for her, going deeper and deeper into the woods, calling for her angrily, not noticing or paying attention to the creak of the trees or the suddenly watchful silence of the forest.

“Jyn!” he shouted, the trees swallowing up the sound of his voice. “I know you’re out here somewhere and I’m not going back until you do!”

The silver smoke of the finding spell seemed to become confused. It would flash in one direction, then another. Then, abruptly, it disappeared altogether, right in front of a half-hidden lair of collapsed trees and rocks.

“Jyn?” Cassian called cautiously down the dark tunnel. “Are you in there?”

He could hear rustling inside the tunnel, something shifting back and forth. “Jyn,” he said again, more forcibly, going further down the sloping path, into the darkness.  “This isn’t funny, Jyn. You’ve freaked out Bodhi and annoyed Kay and you’ve worried _me…_ just come out from there and we’ll go back to the school and talk about it… Jyn?”

A very strange _smell_ hit Cassian in the face. Something fetid and dead and _rotting…_

He had gone further down the tunnel than he thought. Something glimmered in the darkness ahead of him. “Jyn?” he said again, his voice suddenly sounding very small and young and frightened.

There was a huge, scraping, rustling sound ahead of him… like many legs picking a path across the ground. Cassian began to back up, almost tripping over his own feet, as the head of a nightmare loomed up before him一a spider the size of a car, or a horse.

Cassian did not waste time screaming一though he _wanted_ to, Christ on the cross, everything in him wanted to turn into one long, unending scream. Instead, he turned and bolted, sending dirt and stone flying up behind him, the hideous skittering and scraping noise getting so much _closer_ and _louder._

He tore out of the tunnel, out into the fresh air and moonlight, and then一he almost bowled _Jyn_ over. She was standing outside _right outside_ the nest, her expression ferocious, with a一a _unicorn_ , of incongruous things, by her side.

“Jyn!” he screamed, or tried to, it came out like a strangled gasp. “Run!”

Jyn spared him a glance一and then turned her attention to the monstrous spider emerging from the tunnel opening, two hideously long legs prying the earth around it. The unicorn whinnied and tossed it’s silvery mane, but did not bolt. Jyn didn’t back down or run away. Instead, she moved _closer,_ no wand or spell ready一just herself, almost, practically… _glowing_ in the dim, her face fierce and angry. “What do you think you are doing?” she said to it sharply. “He is _mine!_ No one is allowed to touch _what is mine!”_

The spider saw her, all eight weirdly luminous eyes flickering wildly, and then without warning, scuttled _back_ from Jyn frantically, pincers clicking together, something that almost sounded like words: “Danger danger danger hard bright cold two legger walking一”

The unicorn by Jyn’s side nickered anxiously, beating the ground with an elegant silver hoof. “I know,” Jyn muttered to it. “We should go.” She turned back to Cassian and scowled at him. “You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.”

All of his terror and adrenaline turned into anger and just like that, he was shouting at her. “ _YOU_ shouldn't be out here!”

“Nothing out here is going to hurt me,” Jyn said flatly, almost miserably. The unicorn nudged her side, neighing softly and Jyn sighed, giving it’s nose a reluctant pet. “Come on,” she told it tiredly, "let's take him back.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain about that,” he said furiously. He stepped toe to toe with her, which was harder to do than he thought. The unicorn stayed near Jyn’s side, almost standing in front of her as it was _protecting_ her. He wasn’t going to budge. "What is going on with you?”

Her face went hard. "I can’t tell you that.”

“What _can_ you tell me?" he demanded, not quite yelling, but getting back there.

"You're not safe,” Jyn said, as if he was as an idiot for not realizing that.

Cassian felt himself on the verge of tearing his hair out. “That's because we’re in the Forbidden Forest! Which is forbidden _for a reason_!"

“You’re not safe with _me_ ,” Jyn said, as if that explained everything, and turned on her heel, marching off in the opposite direction. “Come on. You definitely don’t want to meet one of Aragog’s children again.”

“There are _more_ of those things?” Cassian croaked out, scrambling to keep up with her.

Jyn walker faster, the unicorn trotting to match her pace. “Yeah, and if we’re _really_ unlucky, it’ll come back with all it’s siblings. I can scare off one, I don’t think I can do more than that.”

“What is _wrong_ with this country,” Cassian managed to get out. He was going to have nightmares for probably the rest of his _life._

The two of them and the unicorn hurried through the forest, in more or less the way Cassian had came. Jyn was moving...differently, in the woods. There was a strange, uncanny stalk to her steps, like a wolf he had seen on a nature documentary stalking prey. The unicorn kept pace by her side, occasionally reaching out to nudge her along the path.

The moon was rising in the sky when they met the centaur met them. Cassian skidded to a halt, as Jyn stopped dead, glaring at the being before them.  The unicorn nickered warily and lowered it’s horn.

“You are not welcome here," the centaur said flatly, but he was looking at Jyn. He had a grim, handsome face, olive-skinned and with a heavy plait of black hair over one shoulder. The unicorn whickered angrily.  

Jyn folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “In case you can’t tell, I’m leaving now Blaise.”

The centaur paced in a slow circle around them, eyes hard and remote as the moon above their heads. “You are not welcome in this forest,” he repeated. “You smell of darkness and frost.”

“What are you talking about?” Cassian demanded. He had never met a centaur face to face before, but after a giant spider and a unicorn, his capacity for surprise seemed to have been worn out tonight.

“And you bring a peaceweaver boy into this forest,” the centaur continued, as if Cassian had not spoken. “You come here to this time, this place, with a unicorn by your side and power singing in your veins and stars in your bones? _You will wake them._ Even now, they are stirring.”

“I didn’t _choose_ it,” she burst out. “I didn’t _want_ this一”

“The forest knows your name, Jyn Erso,” Blaise the centaur said grimly, a cadence to his voice like he was reciting something he’d said many times before. “It knows your name and it is looking for you. You are cataclysm. You are calamity. You are catastrophe. You are ruination to us.”

Jyn let out a sound that could only be described as a snarl and seized Cassian’s hand to drag along, practically hauling him past the centaur. “Go _away,_ you stupid old mule.”

The centaur watched them go in silence, the unicorn trotting next to Jyn as she and Cassian left him behind.

“Is _that_ what’s got you worked up?" Cassian had waited until they cleared the edge of the forest before digging his heels in and stopping Jyn in her tracks. “Tell me you don’t believe that...mierda.” He was furious, ready to set things on fire. But he was also smart enough to wait until they were someplace safer to have the argument.

Jyn was practically straining at the hold he had on her arm, like a greyhound on the edge of a leash. “You don't know what you're talking about. That stupid nag doesn't know either.”

“Jyn,” Cassian said in a slow, measured voice that meant he was about a second away from throwing something, or cursing, “if you take one more step I'm going to hex you."

She succeeded in yanking her arm away from him. The unicorn shyed nervously around them.

“I'm _not safe,_ ” she yelled furiously, "do you get that? There is something _wrong_ with me."

Cassian threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Yes, there _is_ something wrong with you! You’re not eating and you’re not sleeping, and you’re clearly delusional if you think that it's not killing me to watch you struggle like this. That Bodhi isn’t worried sick about you. Hell, Kay has more psychology textbooks than science ones right now."

Jyn’s face twisted like she was fighting back tears or a snarl and the unicorn reared threateningly, it’s horns flashing dangerously close to Cassian’s face. He didn’t flinch this time. “Jyn, _por favor, talk_ to me."

“Just leave," she hissed at him. "Just do it already." He would do it sooner or later, sooner if she talked to him, later if she didn’t. And she was tired of waiting for it to happen.

"No,” he said without moving, without taking his eyes off of her. The unicorn paced, clearly distressed by Jyn’s distress.

“You'll leave," she said tightly, wavering back and forth. “I know you'll leave.”

"Jyn--” Cassian started, hesitated, then plunged ahead determinedly, “What happened over winter break?”

“He left me,” Jyn bit out, "Saw left me--somewhere else and I had to fight and there's something wrong with _me_ ,” she finished, looking as though talking about it had hurt.

"You _feel_ like something is wrong with you, or someone _told_ you there’s something wrong with you?” There was a difference, he knew. The first needed to be treated seriously by someone probably someone older and smarter than him. The second could be reasoned with if she’d just _listen_.

She shook her head furiously. “Both. Either. It doesn’t matter, you can’t be around me.”

The moon was rising now, a dull golden color. It was almost full and Cassian could’ve sworn she was almost _glowing_ under it's light. She was otherworldly and feral and beautiful and she looked as though she might shatter if he touched her.

He didn’t dare her to stop him, because she really was extremely good at dueling and he didn’t want to push her into an actual fight. But she had to know that he wasn’t going to walk away from her, even if she seemed to expect it.

“I watch your back, yeah?” She nodded stiffly, not looking him in the eye. “Then _let_ me watch your back.” Taking a chance, Cassian reached out to touch her arm, letting the very tips of his fingers rest on her. “I’m with you, Jyn, all the way.”

Tears leaked out of her eyes before she could stop them. The unicorn backed down from threatening Cassian. “I just want to go home.”

Cassian released a long breath. “Back to your parents? Or…back to Hogwarts?”

“Hogwarts,” she said immediately. “I want to…I want to stay.”

“Then come on,” he told her, “I’ll take you home. I’ll stay with you, I promise.”

The unicorn walked with them until the edge of the forest, only leaving after Jyn shooed it off.  Jyn was so tired she was nearly staggering, Cassian ended up having to carry her. She was… distressingly light. He knew she shouldn’t be this thin. Jyn clung to his neck, face pressed to his shirt. He was wonderfully solid, dependable, _there._ Loyal, Hufflepuff Cassian. _Her_ Cassian. She tried not to dwell on how nice that sounded, how right it felt.

“I’m going to tell Kay you were with a unicorn,” he said, trying to tease, trying to keep her focussed on him. “Feeding it sugar lumps and wearing a dress of moonbeams.”

“Do it and die,” Jyn mumbled, somehow sounding more like herself since the beginning of term.

Disapproval radiated from the Fat Lady as he approached the portrait, carefully set Jyn down in front of it. “Password for _students_ only.”

“He’s with me. I want him here,” Jyn said flatly, drawing herself up. “Mori quam foedari.”

“Humph,” the Fat Lady said again and bent back to show them the way up.

Cassian’s Latin was heavily influenced by his Spanish, so he only got the gist of it. “Death and foes?” he said, helping Jyn up the stairs. She gripped his arm in support.

“Death before dishonor,” Jyn translated. “ _I_ didn’t pick it,” she added, seeing his disapproving look.

Professor Longbottom was waiting in the common room, with Shara and most of Jyn’s dormmates.  There was some whispers that were silenced when Professor Longbottom said briskly, “You look done in, Erso. Bey will take you upstairs.”

Shara glared the other whispering girls into silence. “Let’s go, Erso.” She started to guide Jyn away, gently but firmly. “I want Cassian,” Jyn said stubbornly.

“I’ll be right there,” Cassian said firmly. “I just want to talk to the professor.”

Jyn clung a little harder to Cassian. “It’s okay,” he said to her quietly. “I’m with you.”

She relaxed, and let Shara pull her upstairs. Leaving Cassian facing off with Professor Longbottom.

“You should be in your own dorm, Andor,” Longbottom said, not without kindness. “Professor Bones will be looking for you and the rules can only be bent so far, even for your friends.”

“I promised I’d stay with her, sir,” Cassian said, refusing to move. “Just until she falls asleep.” Seeing that the professor wasn’t about to change his mind, Cassian repeated, “I promised.”

Professor Longbottom sighed heavily. “And Hufflepuffs never break a promise. Gryffindors honor oaths. Alright, Andor. If you’re not in your own dorm by midnight, Professor Bones will have my head, and yours.”

Cassian nodded and left his piles of books on a table. Then he headed up to Jyn’s dorm, feeling Professor Longbottom’s eyes on his back.

Jyn was already under the covers by the time he got there, though it was anyone’s guess if she had gotten into pajamas or not. Cassian dragged a nearby chair and sat down in it, firmly ignoring the speculative glances from the other Gryffindor girls, and whispers.

Shara brought him a blanket, with a knowing, wry look on her face. “ _Lo tienes mal_ ,” she murmured to him, her Spanish possessing only the faintest edges of a British accent.

“ _Se lo prometí_ ,” he said back, prepared to be stubborn about it.

She sighed, shook her head. “You better be careful, Andor. She might need more help than you can give her.”

Cassian pulled the blanket around himself. Then he would give her all the help he could.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you everyone who wanted more of this sprawling monstrosity, and for waiting so patiently as I wrangled with it. for Sarah, who lets me go on tangents.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this work took a good long look at J.K. Rowling's Wizarding America and went, "...naaaaah." It also took a good long look at PotterMore and was like, "you know what I'm going to make stuff up and see if it sticks." To the purists, I apologize. 
> 
> NeonDaisies, aka Sarah, has been my co-conspirator and co-author for this for the past four months. It is definitely one of the biggest and ambitious things I've ever written, and it would have been absolutely impossible without her ideas, suggestions, plotting, advice and long-lasting enthusiasm for this project.


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